till the sunrise
by makapedia
Summary: In a world overturned by kishin and madness, young scientist Maka Albarn strives to find a solution. Along the way she stumbles upon Soul Evans, and through each other they find companionship and empathy. And then everything goes horribly wrong. [ Reverb 2016 ]
1. Chapter 1

reverb 2.0! again, the biggest thanks to the mods for organizing the event and all of their hard work. i appreciate you all so much for all you've done! and of course, thank you to proma for betaing the beginning despite being tender when it comes to angst. lunar, too, for looking some of it over as well!

my artists - sojustifiable/justifiably and peregr1ne - also both threw in some beta comments too and are sooo wonderful. their stuff will be up on their respective tumblrs!

* * *

She's sixteen when the kishin are suddenly a _problem._

Soul-eating humans are one thing. Soul-eating humans that have consumed so much that their very physiology has started to morph and change them into _monsters_ are another. She learns early on that life is a careful, delicate balance, and that souls, much like people, cannot be sorted into easy, black-and-white lanes of morality. There is good, of course, and there is evil - but there are also good people who do bad things, and _bad_ people who occasionally make _good_ choices.

She's sixteen when her best friend's father devours his wife's soul. She's still sixteen when she witnesses a woman's chest get skewered by a bony, clawed appendage that she's forced to assume was once an arm.

Mama teaches her that the mind and body are important as well, that a soul is truly sound when the mind and body are also healthy. Because of it, Maka makes sure to finish her broccoli and clean her plate of her carrots. She keeps herself fit, does strength training with her now-orphaned best friend, reads and soaks up information like a sponge - anything, anything to keep her family out of harm's way, anything to keep a sense of normalcy in an otherwise broken system.

Maka is only a teenager when the world begins to spiral out of control. Old enough to be aware - hyper aware, at that - of her surroundings and the grimness of the situation, and young enough to feel powerless. With no means of fighting back and the fear quickly mounting, she can do nothing but cower, quietly furious at herself for being so helpless.

Then, when she's seventeen, Mama dies.

.

Maka will not go quietly.

By the time she's in her early twenties, she's knee deep in research. Mama didn't raise a fool; no, she raised a fighter. Sitting and waiting like a helpless doll for salvation has never sat well with her. And with her life turned completely upside down, when she's been personally victimized by the upcoming end of everything, how can she sit and twiddle her thumbs?

Her best friend, Black*Star, enlists in the military. She sees him off the same morning she does her father, kissing each of them on the cheek with a heavy, stony weight sinking deep in her stomach. There are parts of her that want to leave, too, to channel all of her frustration and anger into such a physical outlet - but then there are also rational parts of her that know that fighting essence-munching monsters with nothing more than flimsy _steel_ won't end in victory. So she lets what's left of her family go, doesn't shatter the thin veneer of hope in her pseudo-brother's eyes, and locks herself in the library for months.

She wants to fight; she just knows that going in empty-handed is suicide. And Maka's not ready to die yet, not until the world's a little safer, not until Mama can rest in peace.

In the months following her twenty-second birthday, she lives up to her middle school nickname. Now a real and true bona fide _bookworm_ , she can't even find the time to laugh at the reality of it, or how she's _such a nerd_ now that she really _doesn't_ have a social life. She has nothing but her research and the necessities - eating, sleeping, rinse and repeat.

But research can only go so far in a community library. Brilliance can only carry her so far when the content she's allotted is stagnant, well-loved books that she's torn through time and time again.

With a degree under her belt and the world crumbling at her feet, she is not a patient girl. Not that she's ever been, not that she's ever had an easy time sitting pretty while time winds on, but the stakes are different now. In another world, she might've followed in her mother's footsteps, gone to medical school, might've been able to walk beyond Shibusen's limits without fear of becoming prey to the things that go bump in the night. Maybe, maybe she wouldn't have a degree in weaponscraft, of all things, so brutal and cutthroat. The little voice in her head - the one that sounds so like her Mama - tells her to be brave, but _bravery_ is so hard to gather in spades when she's left to reread the same discouraging passages over and over again.

She thinks of her Papa, fighting for a better world. He's not a brave man. He's never been a brave man. But he'd kissed her forehead so reverently, told her she was the brightest thing left in this world, told her that he'd do anything to keep her safe. And she thinks of Black*Star, the barely-maintained hope brewing in those dark green eyes of his, the determined set of his jaw.

She will do whatever she can to keep them safe, too. There are some things that're worth fighting for. Family. Friends. The sanctity of a heartbeat.

.

Her grant is approved two weeks later.

Finally, she has something to call her own. The lab isn't large by any means but it's hers, a place she can put to good use. Maka cracks open the shades on the one window she has to inspire her. Daylight, she thinks, is something worth remembering. After every sunset, there is always sunrise.

Plus sun exposure helps produce vitamin D, which, for a girl who has previously locked herself in her study for two days straight while cramming for an exam, is probably (definitely) a necessity.

She does not forget the sacrifices she made to get here. She does not forget swallowing her pride and begging for assistance, for funds, for a place to experiment, for books, for hope of salvation. She will never forget being degraded, the shame in wearing her surname ( _Albarn,_ a gift from her womanizing, bottle-tipping father) made blatant the longer she stood with her head respectfully bowed. She is not a girl who bows, but she _is_ a girl who wants to make a change, and sometimes those two things clash. For Papa, for Black*Star, for Mama, the proud part of her stifles itself, lurking in the shadows of her temper, in her clenched fist - in her palm, with the half-moon scars from her nails imprinted in pink.

In this dog-eat-dog world, she's merely a kitten. And she best retract her claws when in the face of the top dog.

The Evanses are a lot of things. They fight for the greater good, she _thinks,_ because otherwise, they wouldn't have given her a lab to work in and access to greater knowledge, right? But they're so damn _pretentious!_ The sensible, practical part of her doesn't understand why one would need to implement and swear by a social hierarchy when the real focus should be on the men and women having their souls ripped from them daily, when families are torn apart by means of moral corruption, when young girls are left motherless and angry before they've even graduated high school.

And yet it continues. And yet here she is, finally, with the means to conduct research, to go into deeper readings of Eibon's work, of the late Arachne's experiments and demonsteel, _witchcraft,_ only because she swallowed her dignity and asked for the help of a rich, hollow man.

It makes her sick. She cracks the window open and breathes in the fresh air instead of dwelling on it.

The air isn't as fresh anymore. Madness moves like thick smog, tainting every breath that little bit more, and it's only through Maka's sheer power of will (and the blessing of her Mama's grigori soul, passed down to her only child) that keeps her head screwed on straight. She, at least, doesn't have to worry about taking madness-suppression medication like the rest of society. She doesn't have to live in fear of looking at another human like a snack. No, she just has to worry about becoming someone's dessert, because the sweetness of an angelic soul is surely tempting.

Part of her thinks this is why she's given such a gracious grant, why she, an otherwise no-name girl who wears the face of her weak-willed father and the integrity of her dead mother, is given a place to try and merge power and steel into a weapon. Because while her marks are top-notch, while she graduated ahead of her class and totes an impressive degree, her soul speaks more clearly. In a world nearly devoid of witches, a grigori is something of an anomaly. Madness does not speak to her the way it does everyone else. It does not whisper in her ear at night, does not tempt her with power.

She's trustworthy. Reliable. Brilliant, yes. Determined.

Angry. She's _angry,_ so very angry.

It takes her a good two days to dust the place out and situate it to her liking. Tables are moved, bookcases are rearranged, vials are placed carefully along shelves - it's reminiscent of spring cleaning, of helping her mother shake out the rugs in early May, Febreeze wafting in the afternoon air, and her drive returns in spades, burning her blood like liquid hellfire.

.

Sometimes Maka wishes she had been born a witch.

Not because they've nearly become extinct. Not because they're a rare species, now that the kishin have begun to hunt down their much-more powerful souls, but because of the inherent alchemy that would make enchanting weapons far less difficult. Sure, things like their mythed destructive nature and gray morality might've come as an obstacle, but in the long run, it would make things much easier on her.

She is not a witch, though, unfortunately, and would-have-could-have scenarios won't make her work complete itself.

Maka taps her pencil along the vial of black blood. It echoes in the lab.

" _Eugh,_ " a deep voice grunts.

Startled, she _gasps,_ sits up straight and blinks owlishly at her open window.

A man stares back at her, just as surprised and only half as composed. He looks familiar but she certainly can't place a name to his face. No, Maka's quite sure she'd remember that mess of white hair, those dark, deep set eyes - and the question remains, _who is he and why is he outside her window?_

He collects himself quickly, but not without a quick flash of guilt in the process, and more than enough pink running up his neck to suit her just fine. "Uh," he grunts again, without a breath of articulation.

"What?"

Scratching his neck, he mumbles, "... Rhythm…"

"What?" she tries again.

"Your rhythm's, uh, really bad," he manages, finally, after clearing his throat. When she clenches her pencil in her hand, his posture slouches further and he takes a step towards her window. "Oh, there's gunk in there. Must be pretty dense to make a noise like that."

"Black blood," she says mindlessly.

His expression pinches. "Grody."

"It's thicker than human blood," she recites, like clockwork, "and has hardening capabilities. It was Medusa Gorgon's work."

"Fascinating."

"I didn't ask you," she says sharply.

He holds his hands up in surrender. This boy doesn't take a step closer until she crumbles back down, face first, onto her desk, defeated. Only then does he lean against the open windowsill, sunlight bleeding behind him like a violent halo, bleaching his pale hair further. Upon further inspection, she discovers his dark, dark eyes are actually a deep brown, not at all the near-red color she'd suspected at first.

"You look stressed," he notes.

She peeks up through her bangs and huffs. "I hit a block."

He taps his fingers along his cheek in quiet thought. Whoever he is, he's stupid pretty, long, light lashes and strong jaw, even with a thin, black headband holding his messy bangs back. There's a pink sunburn warming his forehead. "So take a break."

Her brows set. "I don't have time for that."

He shrugs. "Suit yourself."

And then he's gone.

Maka doesn't see him again until a few days later, only this time, he's much less composed. The sunburn is peeling, and there's no pink embarrassment warming that slender length of his neck. No, this time, his expression is tight, brows taut, fists clenched, and he's seated right on top of her desk.

She makes sure to slam the door behind her to get his attention. The guy jumps a mile, hand over his heart, expression scandalized. "WHAT-"

"Your butt is on my notes," Maka says.

He blinks. Peers down to his lap. Cracks his thighs open and must realize, _oh,_ _I'm sitting on someone's hard work,_ because he hops down from his pedestal and stuffs his hands into his pockets broodily. "Sorry. You're usually gone by now, and there's nowhere else to hide-"

"You know my schedule?" she asks, brows raised beneath her bangs.

This strange boy only sulks more, guiltily. "The guards don't patrol around here as often. I like to go for walks. Uh. I can go-" he shuffles around nervously, but he's still got those distraught wrinkles along his forehead and she can't seem to look away.

Perhaps it's pity that inspires her to let him stay. Maybe it's the sad look in his eyes, like a kicked puppy, that convinces her to let this paper-wrinkling, desk-sitting potential stalker linger in her lab. Probably, though, it's the vibe she gets from him. Maka likes to think she's a pretty good judge of character, and while this boy may be tactless and a little mysterious, she doesn't read any ill intent.

"No," she says, and he pauses, shoulders hunched. "I mean, as long as you promise not to deface any more of my work, I guess you can hide out here. You're not a criminal, are you?"

He shrugs. "Bad to the bone," he mumbles, defeated. "Spoke out of place, you know, the usual."

Maka _does,_ if only because she's got a mouth on her that doesn't take to silence well, so she gives him a friendly shove and plops herself down in her seat. "Don't get in the way," she says, already unpacking her bag and pulling out another one of her notebooks, and he nods, expression vacant, moving to the other side of the lab like a skittish cat.

.

His name is Soul, and the irony isn't lost on her.

At first she thinks he's kidding, but he doesn't laugh or tease her the way he had the first time they met, so she takes his word for it. She tells him her name is Maka Albarn and his expression doesn't change. She doesn't expect it to. She's not exactly a somebody, not really; and if he doesn't connect the dots and realize she's Spirit Albarn's little girl, well, all the better for her. Maka certainly doesn't drown herself in women and alcohol to get by, and she'd rather he not think so, either. Not if he's going to be spending an extended amount of time in her workspace.

Which he does, like a stray cat. He keeps coming back, and Maka extends the metaphorical saucer of milk every time. With each visit he grows more and more comfortable, even going as far as to crack a particularly stunning half-grin when she manages to translate another page of Eibon's work.

"You know," he says, standing by and watching keenly as she measures out ratios of blood and melted steel, "you're really kind of a nerd."

She shoots him a particularly impassioned glare over her shoulder. He bristles and goes to flip the bird at her, perhaps out of instinct, but stops himself and scratches his face instead. "What are you even doing here, anyway?"

Soul takes to rubbing his neck. "It's interesting," he admits slowly.

" _Interesting,_ " she repeats. "For a nerd."

"No - well, yeah, but - I mean- you work really hard," Soul says, fiddling with the string of his hoodie distractedly. "And… I don't know. I thought witchcraft died when Asura finally finished off Arachne, so it's sort of… interesting to see you working so hard to crack the code."

"I'm not evil," she says, without missing a beat.

He regards her with an air of forced flippancy. "Didn't say you were."

"You thought it."

Soul watches her stand up and scuttle around to the other side of her table. " _Didn't,_ " he insists, and there's an unusual warmth in his gaze, his dark eyes holding a silent sort of respect she's unaccustomed to. When she holds out her palm, half a breath later, he hands her the pencil she'd left behind and lingers by as she works.

When she glances up again, he's still watching her with those same gentle eyes. And for a brief, fleeting second, Maka's caught in his gaze, a hypnotic sort of lull, warmth tickling her face - and then the spell is broken as Soul scratches his neck and asks, "How long have you been at this?"

"Few hours," she says around her dry mouth. Steeling herself, Maka busies herself with her notes again, thinking not of pretty eyed boys and shy little smiles.

"I meant in the grand scheme of things," he says. "How long have you been trying to make witchcraft happen?"

Maka taps her eraser against her chin. "I've been studying since I was seventeen. I graduated high school early and then pushed through college."

She hears him shift his weight, hears him drop himself into _her_ seat. Through her peripheral vision, she sees his elbows find a place on the lab table, sees him shift his weight and lean forward. Maka doesn't need to look to know he's got his face cradled in those stupid pretty hands of his (what reason does any boy living in a dying world have for pretty hands?) and probably the same dopey, sleepy look on his face he always does when he asks questions.

"Huh," he mumbles. "Wait, how old are you?"

"Twenty-two and a half."

Soul stifles a snort, barely. "You still count halves?"

"What's wrong with that?" she asks, bristling, and glances up just in time to catch him grinning at her. " _What?_ "

"Toddlers count halves. You're twenty-two."

"I'm halfway to twenty-three."

He shrugs, yawning. "Twenty-three isn't that great. Don't rush it."

"No offense," she starts, "but the world's plagued with madness. _Everything's_ not so great right now. I don't think age has anything to do with it."

"Then why're you still counting halves?"

Maka pauses. Considers. Bites her lip and watches, still pondering, as Soul shrugs his sloping shoulders again and blankets his arms on the table like a pillow. He's resting in a moment, cheek pressed to his leather-clad forearms as he peers up at her inquisitively. There's something about his gaze that melts her iron-clad defenses, just a little; she thinks it might be the honesty, the quiet curiosity, maybe even just the genuine way he seems interested in her life.

It's been a long time since anyone has asked her questions about herself and not her work. It's been even longer that she's let anyone get close enough to try.

"... Old habits die hard, I guess," she manages, finally, fidgeting beneath his lazy stare.

Like a cat soaking up the sun, he yawns, daylight peeking in through the cracked window like a spotlight. "Guess so," he says quietly.

She waits for him to say more. He doesn't, so she asks, "How old are you?"

"Twenty three," Soul says. He quirks a little crooked grin, dimple and all. "And a quarter."

.

Much like a pet cat, Maka adopts him.

Sort of.

He comes by all the time. Most of the time he doesn't even knock anymore, and she's come to strangely look forward to his interruptions. Occasionally he brings her little snacks, the rare candy bar (but usually a crudely-wrapped muffin that she accepts just as heartily) and such, but mostly he just brings himself in varying states of mood. For someone as emotionally stunted, he's surprisingly easy to read once you know what to look for, and Maka's becoming somewhat of a pro.

It's more like she's become the accidental caretaker of a stray alley cat. With nice bone structure and a smart mouth. Maka mentally adds another pet to her list of creatures with whom she shares her space.

She doesn't slow her pace for him. He doesn't ask her to. Soul never really asks for anything at all, actually; most of the time he just shows up, hands her things that're just out of her reach and coexists, just for hour intervals at a time, before the stress sets back into his face and he heads back out her door.

On a particularly frustrating Thursday, he looks up from his nap when her stomach growls nosily.

"You gonna get that," he grunts, scrubbing the sleepies out of his eyes.

"Busy," she says mechanically.

Her stomach complains again. Soul raises his brows, peering at her with deceptively lazy eyes. There might be groggy darkness lingering there but he still doesn't miss a thing. "Sounds important."

"Soul."

"C'mon, just a half hour break. We can get lunch. On me."

If Maka were years younger, she might think she was being asked out on a date, of all things.. But she isn't. Her traitorous stomach vocalizes its agreement and Soul smiles, smiles, smiles, all too smugly. Maka presses her lips together and squints suspiciously at him.

"I can pay for myself," she says defensively.

"It's really not a problem," Soul admits, pushing a hand through his hair. "Really, don't sweat it. It's the least I can do for sitting on your work."

.

Her stray cat is no stray.

Maka nibbles the end of her straw and watches him slide his wallet back into his pocket, watches him flop back into the seat across the table from her. When he meets her eyes, he doesn't regard her any differently, still looks at her with the same semi-guarded, hazy sort of companionship she's grown accustomed to, and Maka offers a tentative smile back. Because really, she should've seen this coming - why else was Soul always just _around?_ \- and a last name can't change who a person is, not really. After all, she's living proof of that. Maka wears her father's surname with half-brewed reluctance.

He's not even a little bit a stray. No, he has a family - a wealthy, _powerful_ family, the very same family that's funding her little experiments. She sits back and wonders, fleetingly, if that puts him in a position of power over her and how she feels about it. Sure, he's got social standing over her (and bountiful pocketfuls of cash) but thus far, Soul hasn't treated her anything like his father had. And that alone steels her resolve; he might be Soul Evans, but he hadn't introduced himself as such, and Maka knows better than anyone what it's like to feel estranged from her family.

She thinks of Papa's letters, Papa's emails, all the women he'd brought home, post Mama.

Soul curls his same nervous smile back at her. It's raw, so vulnerable, and warms something deep within her chest, something she hadn't been aware was dormant.

He cups a hand over his eyes, sun glaring down upon him, and says, "D'ya like the milkshake?"

She smiles around her straw. "I haven't had one since I was thirteen. Mama said they were too unhealthy."

"Milkshakes are like, work of the gods," Soul says, with such a no-nonsense tone that she has to bite back a grin. His free hand drums along the corner of the table, the face of his watch projecting a glare into her eyes and she leans back, out of instinct, still sipping the vanilla goodness. "See? It's good for the soul. Eat up. Or drink up, whatever."

Maka slips the straw from between her lips. "It'll go straight to my thighs."

"Eh," he shrugs, "you can spare the weight."

"Is that a compliment or an insult?"

"Can't it just be an observation? he asks, and Maka crosses her legs, one over the other, like a lady should sit, beneath the table. She bumps her foot against his knee. "Hey. I'm just saying, you're awfully… y'know. _Lean._ "

She stirs her milkshake. "What a nice way to say I'm skinny."

"Pffft," Soul scoffs, leaning back in his seat, lazily dipping a fry into his ocean of ketchup. "If that's how you want to take it."

"What other way is there?"

"You're a scientist who spends all of her free time reading and yet you still look like you could snap me in half?" he offers. There's not a single trace of malice in his tone, not even a hint of distaste - Soul's still watching her with those same warm eyes, watchful and curious, and Maka's tongue goes a little numb.

She chooses to blame it on the milkshake _. Foreign_ milkshake, which isn't part of her routine - _that's_ gotta be the thing throwing her off, for sure.

Feeling silly, and young, like he hasn't since she was fourteen, she swallows thickly and says, "Thanks? I, um, work out."

He snorts and swirls a fry in the air. "Yeah, I can tell. When do you find the time?"

Admitting the truth - she _doesn't,_ not really, but moreso _makes time_ , and has no real social life to speak of because of it - feels like defeat (and a moodkill), so she shrugs instead. There was a time and a place once for weakness, and that time has long since past. There are things he might not understand - the gaping hole in her mother's chest, where her soul had once been - that will haunt her forever, things that serve as a better motivation than sore muscles and rumbling stomachs.

Maka chews her lip, stares deeply into the pits of her drink, and feels the familiar burn behind her eyes. But she is a warrior, now, _a grown woman_ , and the time to cry has passed, too. "I just _do._ "

He doesn't say anything after that. Maybe he senses the dip in her mood. Maybe he catches her smudging the heat from her eyes with her sleeve and decides it's not worth it. Whatever the reason, he remains quiet, only moving to unwrap his burger and peel off the pickles. Soul doesn't speak up when she steals some of his fries. He doesn't have to. There's enough unspoken conversations in the depth of his dark eyes to answer her questions.

.

Soul stays late that day. Swirls a keychain around one interestingly long finger and says, "I'll drive you home."

She hadn't even known he had a car. It makes sense, in a weird way, now that the puzzle pieces have started merging together. Soul is privileged. Soul has the money to have a car, unlike her, who spends her mornings walking (or jogging) to her lab. Still, though, it feels weird to think about - days ago, he'd only been her oddly charming helper monkey.

Maka buttons up her coat and smiles, all for show. There's still an uneven rumble in the pit of her chest, the same crack that always leaks red-hot anger whenever she thinks about Mama. "I can walk fine, Soul."

"No, it's dark. I can give you a lift."

"You already bought me lunch."

He gives her a wide grin, dimples and all. His teeth are almost distracting, so white and straight, a perfect, unblemished smile. "You're gonna start feeling spoiled here pretty soon if I don't cut it out, right?"

.

His motorcycle purrs beneath them as it veers off onto an old, beaten path. Maka tightens her grasp around him as they diverge off of tar and onto pressed-down dirt, wind whipping against her cheeks, hair fluttering behind her like a golden trail. He's solid, stark-pale hair brilliant and tangled before her, stomach tight and leather cold beneath her fingers. A distant voice in the back of her head reprimands her _("The back of a motorcycle, Maka? Really? You know boys like that only want_ _ **one thing!**_ " _)_ but she's feeling particularly reckless, with the ferocious roar of the motor rumbling in her ears and the night sky lighting the way like twinkling Christmas lights.

It's a little like flying. She wants to stand, wants to spread her arms and fly and fling his helmet back at him, but just as the urge feels particularly seductive, the bike slows to a stop.

Maka blinks, rather dumbly, and slides her hands back onto her lap. "I don't live here," she blurts.

Soul laughs and slips his keys back into his pocket. "What, you're not a forest imp?"

He takes the punch to the arm like a champ. Even offers a hand out to her to help her off the bike like a gentleman, looking more and more like the boy born with the silver spoon in his mouth like she's come to discover he actually is.

It doesn't really change anything. It just sort of fills in between the lines.

"I really should go home, Soul, it's past my bedtime-"

"Cinderella, just because the ball's over doesn't mean you have to go back into hiding. Come on. Just for a little bit."

Well, she's certainly no princess in her smart pencil skirt and wind-mussed hair, but with his hand in hers, everything's a little harder to rationalize.

"Careful," he mumbles, and her fingers tingle as he cups her palm. "Watch your step, there's a bunch of branches."

"Did you just bring me to makeout point?"

Even in the lowlight of the night, she can still see him light up, dazzlingly pink, spreading as far as the tips of his ears. "Shut up," he hisses, adorably, and it gives Maka the courage to slide her fingers into the spaces between his. "It's the only place within Shibusen's protection that's really quiet at night, and I wanted-"

" _What_ do you want, Soul?" she asks, giggling.

Soul grunts and pulls his helmet off of her. "To stargaze, you little pervert. Thought it might be a nice break for you."

"I'm not the one that chose a makeout spot," Maka reminds him, and Soul only burns brighter, hooking the helmet on the handlebars of his bike and attempting to scowl at her. With their fingers tied, she's tethered to him, and follows after him faithfully, lead by the warm (and confusing) comfort of his hand and the length of his strides.

He (huffily) escorts her to, what Maka assumes, is a rock countless teenagers have gotten to second base on, but she's not mean enough to bring it up and further embarrass him. Maka seats herself and leaves enough room for him. He slides into the spot beside her, gradually, ears still warm, and props their clasped hands on his jean-clad knee.

And for a long while, they're quiet. Soul doesn't make any smart comments and she doesn't ruin the calm with the storm brewing within her. Instead, she tips her head back and watches the stars glitter, lets herself take comfort in the heat of his hand, and his leg, pressed so gently against hers. For as much teasing he throws her way, he's never expectant, never pushing her boundaries - he's almost nervous, in a way, and shy about touching her, which she finds entirely too endearing.

"It's really calm up here," he says, finally, minutes later, with a careful, controlled tone. "I come up here a lot to think. Or to just get away from it all."

"You come up to makeout point-"

"Alone," he cuts in, and his cheeks are _so red_. "Alone, Maka. To _think._ "

But now she's here. Alone. With _him._ The rock suddenly feels that much more sacred, and Maka presses her knees together and swallows thickly at Soul's heavy look. He could move mountains with those eyes, could bring wars to a startling close - and they're doing a number on her immovable heart, judging by the way it shudders in her chest.

But she will not go quietly. Maka squeezes his hand in return. "I don't have time to sit around and stare at the sky all the time, Soul. The world's ending. I can't just sit and wait for it to be over."

"But you're just one girl," he reasons. "And you're _human,_ Maka. It's not all on your shoulders. Don't try to make it that way."

She takes a deep, cleansing breath and breaks their stare to instead watch his thumb brush along the back of her hand. "I _have to_ ," Maka hears herself say, with fire in her veins and responsibility weighing her bones like concrete. "It's what Mama would have wanted. It's what Mama would've done."

Soul doesn't push. Not right away. He flickers his glance upward, watching the night sky, so falsely gentle, amidst the lurking red-haze of madness that plagues them so. It's like they're tangled up in a fog, a crackling mist that whispers of overpowering hunger and desecration. This is the world they live in now, though, overturned by delusion, with humans turning into soul-thirsty kishins overnight and paranoia lurking around every corner.

And boys with pretty smiles, apparently, and warm hands and homely hearts. Such a hopeless place to find companionship, Maka thinks, as Soul purses his lips.

"Tell me about her?" he asks, hushed. "She sounds important to you."

"She is." _Was._ "She was going to save the world."

"And now?"

"... And now I'm going to do it in her place. _For_ her. Because the world took her before she even had a chance to try."

He whistles low, reaching his free hand to rub his creaking neck. "Sounds like a big job, Maka. The world's an awfully big place," he says, and kindly ignores the way she sniffles and holds his hand tighter, tighter, still. "Sounds like a lot just for one girl to do alone."

She laughs, damply, despite nothing being funny, and rubs just beneath her nose. "I graduated early."

" _Braniac."_

"She died when I was seventeen," Maka admits suddenly, and Soul's gaze steels, three parts empathy and two parts remorse.

He's unmovable, sturdy against her, and claps his free hand on top of their clasped pair only after her extended silence. "I'm sorry," he mumbles, almost lost beneath the singing of the crickets and hum of Death City after hours. "That must've been hard."

"To a kishin."

"Maka, it's okay. You don't have to keep going. You can stop, if you want. I understand."

But she wants to. Overcome with the ghosts of her past, she blinks back the tears that shouldn't fall and continues, whispering, "I was _seventeen._ I hadn't even graduated high school yet, and then she was _gone,_ and- and I don't want anyone to ever have to feel like that, to lose someone they love. I don't want any other little girls living without mothers, or fathers, or for a family to be torn apart by tragedy-"

By now she's shaking, trembling, unsure if it's her bottled-up rage or neglect that's fueling the storm within her. Soul holds tight, tremendously silent, stars reflected in his sad, sad eyes as he nods. _Go,_ he seems to say without words, and Maka feels the tangle begin to unwind.

"I can _do_ something," she says massively, voice cracking, and his brows crease beneath the weight of her resolve. "So I'm going to try. I _have_ to try."

.

She cries for the first time in three years that night. Soul tucks an arm around her and mutters, "You're only human," into her hair, rocking her through the quaking sobs that come later.

And when he drops her off, two hours later, he ruffles her hair with a secret, shy little smile and walks her to her door.

.

Sometimes, when Soul visits, he's quiet.

Sometimes, though, he's chattier than ever, and it feels like he's smiling more and more every day. Which is a gift, because he has the kind of smile she has to earn, and every time he flashes a grin - a _real grin,_ with his eyes and teeth and all - Maka feels so complete, like she's accomplished a great feat, and it pleases the workaholic in her immensely. It makes the days with more grueling work that much more bearable, to have him muttering cheesy jokes in her ear and slurping a popsicle messily, grape-flavored sticky sweetness staining his lips.

"Would you cut that out?" she squeaks, shoving his shoulder, and Soul laughs before swiping the pencil tucked behind her ear. "I'm trying to read here!"

" _Maaaakaaaaaa."_

She sighs and glances up from the book of witchcraft she'd been studying, only thirty seconds ago. "Fine, Soul. Just one."

"Yes!" He laughs boyishly, grinning ear to ear. "Okay. _Okay._ Are you ready, bookworm?"

"As I'll ever be."

He clears his throat, holds up the popsicle stick as if it's a sacred, religious tome and asks, "What kind of horse likes to be ridden at night?"

Maka reaches out for her pencil expectantly. There's still a few chapters left for her to take notes on and doing so without a writing utensil is impossible. "What."

"Nope. Guess," Soul says, wiggling her pencil in the air like a conductor might. There's a certain grace in his hands, strong wrists and diligent fingers and finesse. They're pretty, not unlike him, but startlingly so; Soul has the kind of hands people admire, and those hands have held hers - hands stippled with callouses and work - without so much as even blinking at the juxtaposition between them.

She's staring. Soul wiggles the pencil a little more and switches to balancing it between his knuckles, twirling it every so often. "I don't know, Soul. A sleepy horse."

"A _night_ mare."

His laughter drowns out the sound of her groaning.

.

"What exactly are you researching, anyway?" Soul asks one evening, leaning a hip against her open doorway. "I know it's like, witchcraft and stuff, but - what's the actual plan? And what's with the weaponry? Where'd you even find this stuff?"

It's a fair question. Maka's managed to collect a considerable arsenal of weapons, ranging from swords to spears to even a particularly imposing looking scythe, and to the blind eye it might look a little threatening. Tiny Maka, with her hair tied up in pigtails, poking at the impressive curve of a blade with a critical eye and enough backstock to arm a small army. If anything, she only wonders why it took him so long to ask. The live steel has been collecting dust in her lab for the better half of a month.

She tucks the pencil behind her ear and hugs her notes to her chest. "Do you want the long answer or the short one?"

Soul makes a grand show of pulling up his sleeve and checking his wrist. He's not even wearing a watch. "Ehhhh. How much time we talking here? I've got a hair appointment at nine, and then I'm meeting up with Anya and the girls for drinks at ten-"

" _Soul."_

He smiles a little more gently and says, "I've got nothing but time, Maka."

"Take a seat."

"Yes, professor," he says cheekily, plopping himself down onto her desk again. When he leans forward and rests his elbows on her knees, Maka bites back comments on his posture and merely shakes her head instead.

Maka offers her notebook to him after a moment's pause, heart rumbling in her throat. "Here, you can read," she says carefully, and Soul's eyebrows shoot up at the implications - that she's letting him in, letting him read what she pours herself over so tediously, night and day. "It _is_ witchcraft. Namely I'm reading up on the Gorgon's work, mostly Medusa's - but Arachne's, too. They were onto something."

Soul snorts and flips (carefully) through her notebook. "You mean _before_ Medusa awoke Asura."

"I never _said_ she was a good person."

These are dangerous shoes she's stepping into. The message isn't lost on Soul, who shoots her another carefully measured look, eyes watchful and even expression. _Watchful_. But never accusatory.

"It's dark stuff," Maka admits, after a pause. "But there's a hierarchy of souls. When a human starts devouring good souls - innocent human souls - their own soul begins to change. It's not immediate, but they do start to rewrite themselves. Each human soul that's consumed is a little more power - but when they consume a more powerful soul-"

"Like a witch's soul," Soul says, nodding, understanding.

"Like a witch's soul, yes - or a grigori - it's more of a power boost. The kishin figured that out pretty quickly, which is why we have such an overabundance of hyper-powerful ones. Asura ate Arachne's soul. Arachne was an old, old witch. A _powerfu_ l witch," Maka stresses. Soul seems to slouch beneath the weight of her admittance, much less grinning, teasing boy and more-so aged, stressed man. "Who knew a thing or two about binding souls. _Demon_ souls."

He snorts. "What, demons now, too? Aren't kishin enough, Maka?"

"We need something more powerful than a kishin to fight back, don't we? You can't take down a soul-eating monster with a normal gun. That's how you take down a human. That's now how the rules work anymore."

"So…" Soul trails off, flipping through her notebook, eyes glued to the lined paper. Her notes fill each line dutifully, scribbled so quickly and darkly that in some places it's hard to differentiate letters from numbers. "So, what, you're going to draw a summoning circle in your lab and try talking to a demon?"

When she doesn't offer an answer, Soul stares at her. Those warm eyes go hard. "Maka. No."

"Human means of fighting back _aren't working!_ " she snaps defensively.

"What are you planning on doing? Asking nicely and hoping mister demon decides to play nice? It doesn't work that way! What happens when the demon in your lab decides _your_ soul looks tasty, huh?" He shuts her notebook with a start. The sound echoes through the room like a gunshot, and suddenly Soul's standing, expression grim. "You're trying to force a miracle. It won't work."

"Is it better to do nothing at all?"

"Maka," he says.

"No, listen!" she insists, hands balled into tight little fists at her sides. "I'm not just going to go into it blind, okay? Arachne wasn't just summoning demon souls for the sake of it - she was binding them to weapons. To make the weapons _stronger_."

His brows crease. "Maka, you're not a witch. You can read her books all you want but you're not a _witch_. You can't- _can_ you even bind a soul to a weapon without magic? I thought you were a scientist."

She takes a deep breath. Exhales. "Which is why I need a proxy. Something to help it stick."

"Like?"

"Black blood."

Soul's expression pinches. " _Grody."_

But he doesn't shoot her down. There might be concern written in every defeated sigh he emits (and boy, has he been doing _that_ a lot) but he doesn't write her off. He hands her the notebook back, shaking his head, and turns his attention to the beakers of dark fluid that line her walls.

And all at once, Maka worries she's lost him.

"I'm not evil," she says quietly. "I don't like it anymore than you do. But we can't just do nothing. They're getting stronger and we're sitting here, twiddling our thumbs-"

Soul flicks his middle finger against the lip of a beaker and listens to it _ting_. "I know," he admits, glancing at her gradually, all worry and no blame. "I know that. I just don't think… the world's lost a lot already. Can't really afford to lose your big brain, too."

.

She thinks about him a lot these days.

It's short instances that bring him up. Sometimes when she's folding her laundry at night, she catches herself smiling at specific blouses, because she wears them like days of the week and Soul always knows. When she's mixing her morning protein shake, she's reminded of milkshakes and Soul's grinning face, of brain freeze and rare sunshine and then she's smiling, too, hugging her pillow to her chest as she nestles beneath her blankets. He comes up in memories and Maka always ends up grinning to herself, like she's thirteen with a crush, standing on the perimeter of a middle school dance and waiting for her boy to ask her for a dance.

Companionship is rare these days. Especially for her, who otherwise has only letters from Black*Star and her papa to look forward to these days. And Soul, however brooding he may be, fills her life with crooked little smiles and stolen glances, fills the empty spaces between her fingers with his own.

The world is dying. But with him, it's a little more full.

.

For a while, everything goes right.

Experiments come up successful. Translating the works of Eibon - a talented, wise sorcerer - become easier and easier when her head is less muddled with consuming thoughts of revenge. With a well-rested mind, everything comes easier. She'll never admit that Soul's slacker ways merit results, but she'll certainly laugh at the thought - because it's ridiculous, wasting precious time on things like late-night drives on his motorcycle and begrudging dance lessons in the middle of her lab, but for the first time in a long time her soul feels alive. There's a bounce in her step, one that hasn't been around since her Mama's passing, and part of Maka wonders if Soul even realizes all the good he's done for her himself.

Because she notices. She notices all the time, catches herself smiling at his terrible puns and wonders what it would be like to kiss the back of his palm.

And everything goes _right._ Her research _flourishes._ Maka feels on top of the world, like her actions finally matter for once, and finally has someone to share her excitement with.

When he sneaks his way in that night she's finally _(finally)_ managed to anchor a demon's soul, Maka practically launches herself into his arms. Vaguely, she realizes this is the first time she's hugged him - and the first time she's hugged _anyone,_ really, in years - but the excitement is abound and containment is futile. He gasps, caught off guard, and grasps her waist as her arms link around his neck, narrowly collecting his balance before she has the chance to actually knock him off of his feet.

"I did it!" she gasps, a smiling, warm cheek pressed against his. "It's not impossible! I _did it!_ "

"You-?" he yelps, "you did _what?_ "

"I- the scythe!" Maka backs off, just enough to catch a glimpse of his blushing face, cheekbones burnt with a rosy pink. The excitement buzzes through her all the more and then she's practically _vibrating_ in his arms, unable to keep the smile off of her face. "There's a demon in my scythe."

His hands hover over her cautiously. A warm palm ghosts over her hip and Maka shivers, entirely involuntarily, as she squirms her way further into his grasp. When he finally settles on setting his hands on her waist (probably, she things, to soothe her jitters and babbling) Maka sets her own hands on his shoulders. " _Oh,_ " he blurts, still glowing that interesting, shy pink, lips pursing. "That's good?"

"That's great! It means it can be done! It means- _it means_ we don't have to live in fear forever, Soul! Don't you get it?"

Soul blinks slowly. He watches her, finally cracking a crooked little smile, as he lifts a hand to brush her hair from her face. "Knew there was a reason I kept your big brain around."

" _Soul!"_

He laughs and his smile softens, slow and syrupy, and his eyes have never been quite that warm before. "Kidding. Proud of you, bookworm."


	2. Chapter 2

Demons do not play nice.

Summoning spirits of the darker realm is only half of the battle. Getting them to agree to help her cause is another story entirely. Sure, she'd thought about it, occasionally, how it might be _difficult_ to convince malevolent demons to aid humans, but it was the blatant optimism that kept her working, chipping away at her goal. The little voice in her head - the one that sounds annoyingly too much like Soul these days - reminds her that he _so told her so_ , and Maka balls up her fists in her lap and sits, frustrated, as she chews her lip and contemplates her next course of action.

Communication is difficult. Frankly, she's lucky they speak the same language as her at all. Learning a whole new tongue - the tongue of the _underworld,_ for goodness sake - would be nearly impossible. She's lucky they understand English, or whatever the language of the mind is, but still - _still._ They're so snarky and tough to get a hold of - some days, the demon is talkative but snide, as if they enjoy playing with their food before eating it, but most they're just unresponsive, and it's the cold shoulder that pisses her off the most.

What is a girl to do, when the world is in ruins at her feet and the only sign of hope is an equally bloodthirsty spirit that doesn't give two shits about humanity? It's as laughable as it is frustrating, and disheartening, and she might actually crack and throw her hands up and wonder _why her_ if she had the time to do so.

Because it's too late now to go back to the drawing boards. One way or another, Maka will just have to find a way to convince the demon bound to her scythe that the greater good is worth their time and power. For her, and for night-time skies and boys with warm eyes and soft hands and stars, too. For the things left undamaged.

.

"You could come in, you know," Maka finds herself saying, jiggling her key in her hand, heart thundering in her throat. "Maybe. If you want."

The look on his face is priceless. He's less sleepy-eyed, reluctant rich boy and more red-eared, nervous-looking child, teetering close to the cookie jar, unsure if he's overstepping boundaries merely by existing in the same plane of being as her. He traps his lip beneath his front teeth and worries the skin, sucking in a breath through his nose, and Maka is annoyingly drawn to the motion of his mouth like a hawk. "Um," he blurts.

"You always drive me home," Maka goes on to say, still waffling on her front steps, as Soul stares up at her, pale hair stark beneath her streetlight. His eyes are so very dark in this light, so unreadable, and Maka's never been very good at leaving a book unturned. "I have some food. And drinks. I think I might have a carton of juice in the back of my fridge somewhere-"

And he smiles, gradually, that crooked grin that makes her cheeks blush, too. "Juice?"

They're a pair of fools, standing outside her home, blushing and grappling at social cues to pull themselves out of the deep end of feelings. If he pulls ahead, Maka hopes he'll be able to save her pitiful existence, too. "Shut up," she huffs, turning on her feet, hurriedly jamming her key into its lock. "Never mind, it was stupid-"

The sound of his boots clank on her metal steps, and he says, "I _like_ juice."

He doesn't kiss her at the door, like she's been lead to believe happens in so many old-fashioned movies she'd stayed up late to watch while her parents bickered. He does keep smiling at her, though, less crooked and more genuine, with a gentle, unassuming look in his eyes, so very warm behind the slow blinking of his sugary lashes. It's enough for her, though, and she's smiling as she nudges her door open and Soul enters her home for the first time.

It's a little funny, watching him stand there with her floral curtains and hand-me-down cushion covers, looking tall and out of place as he fiddles with the switch for her ceiling fan. When dust snows on him, his nose wrinkles and he sneezes, wafting the air in front of him and huffing, "Ugh, god, no-"

"Sorry," she says, laughing, and shuts the door behind her. "Haven't really been home much lately."

"No kidding," Soul mumbles, backing himself out of the center of the room. He's almost polite, hands tucked into his pockets, shoulders sloping, pushing himself out of her way.

"Wonder who's fault that is," Maka says, a smile pulling at her lips, and Soul pinks again, more brightly this time. When she aims her smile his way, he only burns brighter, mirroring her, shyly, shyly. "Come on. I'll show you around."

Soul sneezes, again. He blinks blankly, lips parted, brows crooked, and Maka forces herself to look away, heat coiling low in her belly. _Inappropriate,_ she scolds herself. Not to mention _creepy,_ too - she is _not_ her father, reading too deeply into every purse of a partner's lips, wondering what it might be like to watch him lose control in another, more exciting way - but sometimes the Albarn blood has her questioning things. Sometimes she's more her father's daughter than her mother's.

"Dust," he says miserably. "M'allergic."

She could laugh. "The world's falling apart, and you're defeated by _dust?_ "

Soul tugs on one of her pigtails in retaliation. She grabs his wrist and drags him down the hall return. By the time they're rounding her bedroom, he's gone decidedly jelly-legged, like a toddler. He squirms in her grasp, skin warm and clammy beneath her fingers, and blurts, "Uh, I usually like to take a girl out to dinner before she shows me the works-"

"Doesn't lunch count?" She quips, cheekily, pushing her door open with her hip. Soul splutters in response. " _Milkshakes,_ Soul."

There's a wild, lost look in his eye, that she might consider taking the time to decipher, but before she can he's shuffling after her, broad and warm and so very real, swaddled in that leather jacket of his and tight jeans. "You have _granny_ bedding," he says, very low, voice textured with that same interesting _something_ that's brewing in his stare. His wording isn't sexy, not even a little bit, but Maka's spine still straightens out of instinct, shoulders pressed back, as if her body is something worth presenting to him. "Maka."

Drowning in his gaze would be so, so easy. She resists, barely, and takes a deep, cleansing breath, rooting her head back onto the Earth. "I mean-" she starts, watching his expression, his set brows and the pale freckles that stipple over his blinking eyelids. "I don't exactly bring guys home often. I'm a one-scythe kind of girl," she jokes.

He cracks, barely, tilting his head. "Mm."

Christ, are his eyes hot. She might as well have sunburn. "I wanted to show you something," Maka says quickly, blood roaring in her ears, that delicious, exciting heat curling in her abdomen the longer she allows herself to sit and brew. "Not my bed."

That heat of him thaws, just a bit. "No?"

"No." _But maybe after._ "My turtles."

.

His laugh is, annoyingly, just as pretty as the rest of him. And distracting.

But he doesn't seem disappointed when she shows off her turtle sanctuary with a Vanna White-esque flourish. He just laughs again, nodding his head, stepping toward her when she waves an encouraging hand in his direction. There's nothing assuming in his slumping stature, just a quiet, amused quirk of his lips, and Maka fights the urge to grab his hand in hers and hold tight. There hasn't been a man in her bedroom in years, and the last time she'd let one in - well, it had been Black*Star, and it hadn't been even a little bit flirtatious in nature, and he certainly hadn't held her hand with the same sort of heart-racing affection that Soul favors.

So she smiles, feeling so very comfortable and warm, and says, "Meet Leonardo and Ezio."

His shoulder brushes by hers. "They're neat."

" _Neat,_ " Maka echoes, bumping his shoulder right back.

"Handsome?" His fingers brush against her knuckles and the world is so very bright, and her heart feels like the sun, bursting, glowing with hope. "I like the flag by their rock."

As if on cue, Leo pokes his head out and cranes a look in their direction. Maka's heart swells impossibly more, almost hilariously lost in her hope and humor and relief, god, at the easy mood that lulls between them. "They're in love," Maka says, stubbornly, and Soul nods, still grinning, grinning. "So I made them a pride flag when I was sixteen. They're soulmates."

He snorts, fingertips ghosting over hers. "D'you really believe in soulmates?"

"They're in love," she repeats, staring over her shoulder at him. When he meets her gaze, he doesn't flinch away, only looks at her with those deep, bottomless eyes, so very warm beneath his long, pretty lashes. "I don't know if all soulmates are romantic, but yeah, I do. Or I want to believe in them, anyway. The world's lonely enough as is."

"Mmm," he hums, and then he looks away when he links his fingers around hers. There's a pink heat warming the length of his neck. "Sounds pretty hopeful, bookworm."

"Maybe the world needs a little more hope."

"Maybe."

There's a long pause that doesn't feel awkward at all, a moment of time where neither of them feel the need to fill the space with words. It's comfortable, standing there with him in her home, holding his hand, letting him peer into the cracks of her life, spaces left untouched by the horror of the reality they live in. There's an endearing undercurrent of trust that surrounds him, one she hasn't felt in a long time. It makes being with him easy, like tying her shoes or reciting the alphabet.

She wonders if he believes in soulmates, too, and why they gravitate toward each other like opposing ends of a magnet.

.

"Whoa," Soul blurts.

Miserably, Maka looks up from her slump on her desk, pigtails askew, and Soul looks torn between bolting over to make sure she's okay or calling for help. "Demons are the worst."

He crooks a brow and shuts the door behind him. "Would've never guessed that one."

"Shut up," she groans pitifully, rubbing her temples. Her eyes are sore and hot, and if she wasn't so close to crying out of sheer frustration, she might actually look in his general direction. But because she's Maka and she's stubborn, so stubborn, she clenches her jaw and grips her lopsided pigtails irritably. "No 'I told you so's. I'm not in the mood for it."

"I thought everything was going well? You- uh, it's in the scythe, right?"

"Playing hard to get _in my scythe,_ " she says through gritted teeth. "I didn't think getting a demon to agree to help slay monsters would be the difficult part of my plan."

Soul snorts, then tugs over a chair and plops down across from her. The fact that there's a second chair for him at all speaks miles, but Maka's not really in the mood for pulse-fluttering flirtation and wonder at the moment, so she whines again and plops her face back down into her hands. The sound of his wordless, thoughtful humming makes her blood burn in both the best and worst way. "Really?"

"I don't want to hear it, Soul."

His fingers drum on her desk as he asks, "What's the issue? They don't like to listen?"

"They don't listen _at all!_ " she vents, finally slamming her hands down on the desk in a fluster. He doesn't flinch, but his brows do raise as he leans back in his seat, the pads of his finger still tapping out a staccato beat on the wood of her desk. "It's like- nothing I say even matters to them. It just goes in one grubby little ear and out the other, and I don't know how to make it any more clear to them that if they don't help, there's not going to be much of a world left for them to ravage later, should they chose to do so."

Soul watches her quietly. Then, he says, "You're trying to reason with evil," as if it's not the most obvious thing in the world, expression blank. "Maybe the two of you just aren't meant to work together. You summoned _one_ demon, can't you just… try _another?_ "

"And leave that one stagnant in our plane?" Maka groans, sliding one hand through a disheveled pigtail. "Not the best idea. I know this one is strong enough. I can sense it, you know? It took a lot of black blood to really glue him within the scythe. If he would just agree to help me..."

"Maybe you're just not compatible?" Soul suggests, and his chair creaks beneath his weight as he shifts, looking loftily over his shoulder. "You've got a lot of goodness, you know? Like you always say, Maka, the bonding of souls is picky business. It took you a long time to catch a demon and bond them to a suitable vessel, right? Maybe your soul just isn't compatible with theirs. Maybe that's the issue. All of your light cancels out their bad. Probably grosses them out. Gives 'em the heebie jeebies."

The setting sun casts an orange glow across him, between breaks of the shadows and panels of her one window. In the late daylight, with the summer breeze the only white noise humming through her lab aside from the steady cadence of his fingers, she realizes, too late, how deep they really are.

Her hand slides over his. His fingers still beneath hers.

"It has to be me," Maka says quietly. " _Nobody_ else. You know how dangerous this is."

He smiles, sad and beautiful, and laces his fingers through the empty spaces between hers. "What if it can't be you?"

" _It has to be me!"_

"Why?"

Because _it is dangerous._ Because no one else has spent months - _years_ \- researching demonic entities and what little the Gorgons knew of their culture and mindset. Because, because, because no one else should ever have to suffer and it's her burden to bear and no one else's, but her throat is tight and Soul looks so _serious,_ clutching her hand so gingerly, rubbing a thumb along the back of her palm. And for a moment, it's almost easy to sink into his lazy heat, greedily soaking in his steady, quiet affection and take in his reasoning.

But then she thinks of motherless children and sobbing husbands and Black*Star's nails digging so deeply into his palms that he'd drawn blood, and her resolve sets again, sinking deep within her.

"I don't want anyone else to get hurt," she mumbles, and that familiar pressure weighs down on her shoulders again. Maka feels small, like she's sixteen with something left to lose, and Soul holds her hand that little bit tighter. "It's my burden. And _my_ idea. I thought you said it was a _bad_ idea anyway."

There's a shake of his head, and then he's leaning forward, eyes dark and unreadable. "It's a terrible idea."

"And you think I should ask someone else to put their soul on the line?"

The sinking sunlight catches his lashes just _right_ and he's luminous, even through his crinkling nose and squinting eyes. "I don't think you should ask just a _nyone,_ " he mutters, and Maka feels her fingers curling around his in revolt before he even has a chance to continue.

"No."

" _Maka-"_

"Absolutely _not_ ," she hisses, yanking on his hand. "Are you nuts? I'm not letting you try, you have _nothing_ to do with this-"

He hovers, so close that she can count each fair eyelash that brushes his cheek when he blinks, and Maka goes still, breath caught. "It's _important_ to you," he says, voice equal parts measured and secretive. "And… and it's important to the world, right? Which makes it important to me, too. To all of us."

"Soul, no."

"I'd do it," he admits, and Maka sinks back in her seat, heart thundering in her chest. It beats so violently that it almost hurts, almost cracks her open. "It's not like we have much else of a choice."

She would rather watch the world burn than put him into harm's way. There's something special about him, her pouty little stray, and to have a part in anything that might dim his rare smile would be mutiny. There are things in this world worth protecting - mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters - and Soul is one of them. He's wormed her way into her life, with milkshakes and shy grins and the warmth of his hand, so much so that she doesn't remember what her lab had felt like without his commentary.

"Let me try one more time," she says, voice crinkling like tissue paper. "I can do it."

He lifts her hand to his mouth and presses his lips to the back of her hand, so gently and tenderly that she can barely feel it happen. But she sure watches it happen, with wide, enraptured eyes and a heartbeat that flutters in her chest like a caged bird, and she's so full of this impossible, ravenous affection for him.

It's dangerous stuff, treasuring people. Stuff she hasn't allowed herself to feel in a long, long time.

"It's _your_ research, bookworm," he mumbles, breath warm on her skin. He breaks like dawn and leans back, golden sunlight warming his pale hair as he watches her. "But it doesn't mean you have to endure it alone."

.

Maka's soulspace is bright.

This, she supposes, could very well be an effect of a grigori soul. She effortlessly repels madness; surely that's why looking within herself often feels like staring directly into the sun. There's just a blinding quality about her light, the kind that burns and melts and sure, maybe that's why this prickly demon doesn't favor her the way she needs, and maybe Soul was on to something. If she can't help but shield her eyes from the violent, purifying light of her soul, how is a demon supposed to fare? How can she connect with such a dark, demonic entity and let it suction on to part of her soul like a barnacle if she can't even dim her own light?

They bring a mist with them. It's a black mist, one that rolls in like a fog and curls around her ankles, wispy like smoke. She smells burnt copper and feels the gritty unease, like sand, between her fingertips as their polished dress shoes part her crippling whiteness.

There stands a little red demon before her, dressed impeccably in a sharp, tailored suit. They're a stout little devil, surely not any taller than half of her height, with sharp, curved horns and arms too long to be human. All of their proportions are off, just a bit - a too-big head, too sharp teeth, short legs and beady eyes - all just enough to be disorienting, just enough to remind her of the reality she gambles with. This creature - this demon, whom she has summoned from realms much more twisted, somehow, than her own - is here because of her, only _her,_ and watches her with an unnerving, hawk-like attention.

They tap their foot. One, two, three, four. Snaps their fingers. Then grins, smile full of daggers. "Again, girlie?"

This is the third time they've met. She's welcomed them into her soul already twice before, with disappointing results. But she's lived to tell the tale both times, and that, at least, is a little comforting.

"It's _important,_ " she says, clearly, and their smile only grows, wider and wider, splitting their dark face. "My world is ending."

"Tricky things, those kishin," they hum in response. "I bet they think that soul of yours looks good enough to eat. I'd certainly love to have a taste. There's nothing better than slurping down the know-it-all, goodie-two-shoes soul of a grigori. Like taking candy from a baby."

Do not deter. Do not show fear. Maka's hands clench into fists at her side and she stands tall, shoulders dawn, jaw set. Scythe-demon only grins, stifling their mad little giggles with too-big hands, mashing them over their greasy lips. Without a physical form - and without a host, a host with arms and legs and opposable thumbs, surely - they cannot hurt her body. They cannot sink those monstrous teeth into her heart and rip out her soul.

And she is strong. She is capable. He cannot control her, not with a wavelength like hers. Maka is brave - or brave enough, at least, to fight back the tremble of her knees.

"Caaareful, girlie," they snicker into their fingers, "don't want to bite off more than you can chew, hm?"

"I need your help," Maka says, resolve set deep in her throat. "I can't _fight back_ without your help."

"And how's a pretty little thing like you planning on doing that?"

She is a kitten in a dog-eat-dog world. Hands shaking, she hisses, "I'm _going_ to drive my scythe straight through Asura and slice him in half. And then I'm going to find a way to eradicate his evil little soul."

The demon hums, fog coiling around him like snakes. The smoke licks at her skin, hissing and whispering, and Maka shushes it with a firm stomp of her foot.

Their brows raise. "Ambitious, aren't we?"

"I'm going to save the world," Maka replies. "And _you're_ going to help me."

"Hm?" They hum, tilting their head maddeningly, so very aloof and obnoxious. "Am I? I don't see why I should. You trapped me in steel. You bring me in here and blind me, and then demand I lend you power for nothing? You're cruel, girl. And boing. Not very much fun to work with at all."

"I'm not _stupid,_ " she hisses back. "You're strong enough to defeat him. I can feel it, with all of this-" she waves a hand at the dark, looming mist that encases them, never close enough to actually suffocate her. There's still so much light streaming through the cracks, bright enough in her blind spots to cast a spotlight on her demonic little guest. "You can help me save the world."

"Boring."

Her brow twitches. "You can help me kill monsters."

"Do you think I'm just mindlessly bloodthirsty?" they ask. "I don't care about that, _missy,_ if I can't do it by my own hands. Do you think I'm _happy_ about being merged into this scythe? You've trapped me," they hiss, and Maka's blood runs cold, just for a moment, as they take a step forward, light flickering beneath each footstep like a screwy bulb. "What, pray tell, can you give me, now that you've got me here? Tell me why I should help you, little girl? What do I get out of it."

And she takes a step toward them, too, fearlessly, as her boot parts the smoke like the red sea. "I'll let you return to your home after you help me."

"I quite like this world," they sing-song, "lots of fun to be had here."

"Not if it's ravaged by _madness._ "

They giggle again, and her skin crawls, uncomfortable, as the mist shrouds them all the more, fingers jammed into their mouth once more as they drool black blood, pooling around them in thick, gooping rivulets. "Eh, we're all a little mad these days. Everyone but you."

.

She wakes with a start, heart slamming in her chest.

It takes her a moment to recollect her bearings. The flickering light isn't the demon waging war with her soul's purity. It's a faulty bulb, hanging above her, humming nosily in the afternoon air. The tiled floor beneath her is cold and her skin is clammy with sweat, but she's not surrounded by a mad fog that threatens to steam her breath. No, that warm, firm presence gripping her shoulders are a pair of hands. Familiar hands, with long, pretty fingers, attached to a boy that regards he with an anxious sort of urgency.

Soul ceases his shaking. His brows are set deep. "Maka," he sighs, voice low. "You're alright."

Her head really sort of hurts. It's not a pounding ache, but more of a dull one, that lurks insistently the longer she really tries to sit and think on the conversation she'd had just moments before in her soul. "Um," she blurts, uselessly, and presses her hands to her face, surprised to find tears prickling in the corner of her eyes. "Sorry, was I out long?"

"Bout an hour," he says, and only settles back when she peeks at him through the cracks of her fingers. Not once, though, does he let her go. "I take it your little deal with the devil didn't go so well?"

"I don't know what to do," she moans pitifully. "We just keep talking around each other. They won't listen."

Soul rubs reassuring circles into her shoulders. For a moment, she wishes she were wearing less, so she could feel his strong, dexterous hands on her bare skin, because it's nearly impossible to remove even half of her deep-seated tension through her shoulder pads. "Sorry," he mutters, and she lets her hands drop to her lap in defeat. "Did they hurt you? Say anything funny?"

"Aside from a bruised ego, I think I'm okay," Maka says, sighing.

"What'd they say?"

Maka finds herself chewing her lip, both in thought and frustration. It's only after she's gnawed on her skin for a good half a minute before she realizes his gaze has dropped to her mouth in the meantime. She stops, and he flickers his stare back up, pinking interestingly.

"... That the whole world's mad, and I shouldn't have bonded them to the scythe if I wanted their help," she says, finally, after Soul stops rubbing her shoulders and lets his own hands drop to his lap. They probably look like a pair of fools, sitting on the ground together, next to a discarded, looming scythe. "I think they're angry at me? But what did they expect for me to do, let them invade my body like a host? Possession isn't exactly on the menu. That would only solve the kishin problem temporarily - soul displacement and body sharing is messy, messy stuff, and it would raise more issues than anything else-"

Soul shakes his head, hands wringing together in his lap. He has this thing about him, she's noticed, where he has to keep his hands busy, be it tapping out beats on her desk, scribbling skulls and scythes in the margin of her notes, or running his fingers through a crooked pigtail or two. "You did what you thought was right," he says reassuringly, and Maka can't fight the urge to take those squirming, writhing hands into her own and holding tight. There is comfort in his heat, one she can't admit to aloud quite yet, but it puts an endearing spark in his eye. "It's not like they're getting out of there any time soon. They're trapped in that scythe, right?"

Maka sighs, nodding. "Yeah, bonded tight with a spell and a hearty helping of black blood. They're not going anywhere, not unless they manage to infect somebody…"

He lifts his free hand to brush her matted bangs from her eyes and smiles, slow and sad. "My turn, then."

"Soul, _no._ "

"What else are we going to do, Maka? You said it yourself - your work is important. The world's ending," he says, as if talking about the weather, something so very cut-and-dry, black-and-white. "What's the worst that can happen, right? You'll be right here to make sure anything bad doesn't happen. You're the professor, bookworm. You trapped them tight. I trust you."

His thumb is so warm on her brow. It burns a hole directly to her heart and she gulps thickly, unable to convey even half of the concerns eating away at her like acid.

"Hey," he says, brushing his thumb along the pursed arch of her brow. " _I trust you_ , Maka. Trust me, too?"

She sucks in a breath, bravely, and asks, "Why are you offering to do this? I thought you hated this idea. You said it was _a bad idea_ in the first place. Why the change of heart?"

Soul shrugs, almost the picture of the care-free, cool guy she knows he likes to pretend he is. But there's a serious set to his brows, and his dark eyes draw her in like a swan song, so very devoted in the way he watches her every breath. "Because the world's ending," he says, and cups her cheek, fingers warm and damp from her pesky tears. "And there are still things worth protecting."

Maka chokes on her ambitions, thick like bile in the back of her throat. She thinks of the word ' _we'_ and how he uses it so often now, how he fills her lab with life and banter and the way he smiles at her, beautiful like nothing else she's ever seen. "Soul, I can do it myself."

"What if you can't?" he asks quietly.

"I have to. You-" she sputters, shaking her head. His thumb brushes the damp heat from the corner of her eye. "It's dangerous, Soul. You _know_ it's dangerous. Demons aren't just-"

"I let you try," Soul mutters, and there's a certain rough quality to his voice that she doesn't quite recognize. "This wasn't your first time, right?"

" _Soul."_

"Trust me," he says again, and Maka feels fear lace its greedy claws around her chest like a cage. Trust is not easy. Trust me, her father had told her mother so many times before her death. Trust me, her father had told _her,_ so very many times, before coming home late at night, smelling of cheap perfume and sex and cheap bar food.

Trust me says _Soul,_ her best friend, her _person,_ and he might as well be signing his own will. There are stitches that tie her together and keep her whole, that keep her soul sound and her body functioning with a broken heart - and a hand, _his hand,_ that keeps hers warm and her heart a little less lonely - and _trust_ snips them both like a scalpel. Palms shaking, she brings the hand in hers to her mouth and brushes her lips against his knuckles, so very tender and gentle, and Soul's eyes could melt her alive.

She inhales. Exhales. Looks up at him through her lashes and says, "I do trust you."

It's the _demon_ she doesn't trust. The demon, with their greasy hands and pointed horns and sharp, sharp teeth, that could surely rip her bundle of hope apart.

Soul claps a hand over their linked pair and nods solemnly. "Then let me try?"

Bravery is the courage to fight through fear. Maka squeezes his hand tighter, like a lifeline, sets her jaw, and wills him to keep his spark.

.

"So, I just…?"

"Hold tight. And close your eyes. And focus on calling their soul to yours." She taps the center of his chest for emphasis. "Right here."

He squirms for a moment, chewing his lip. He peeks at her through half-lidded eyes. Maka spreads the palm of her hand over his chest like a protective bandage, as if it can guard him from the darkness to come. "Kay," he says, and his Adam's apple bobs. She wishes her hand was on his throat, instead, to feel the rumble of his voice, so very deep, and the way it moves through him. "Any other tips?"

"Don't let them tempt you with anything. You want their assistance, not their control. You are still Soul after all of this, you hear me? Come back as Soul."

He offers her a crooked grin. It doesn't silence the worry scratching away at her own chest like an animal. "Okay, _mom._ "

"Shut up. Close your eyes."

Soul winks and obeys. "See you on the flipside."

.

He's out for nearly two hours. Twice the time she was, and the fact does nothing to soothe her dull headache or the panicky jitter that's taken control of her heart. Her blood feels too warm, her heart too thick, the room too cold. Vaguely, she wonders if maybe they should've given the demon a grace period before attempting to strike a deal again. Maybe they shouldn't have tried to make a miracle happen so quickly after Maka had given them the boot from her own soul. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

It doesn't matter. What's done is done, and now she's forced to live with the consequences. Life does not have a rewind button, and hindsight is 20/20.

All that does matter is Soul coming back in one piece. Soul, victorious or not. Soul, strong enough to ignore temptation and power and come back to her, safe and sound.

 _Soul. Soul. Soul._

It's like he's all she can think about these days. He's a constant in her life, very much her rock, and without him around for even just two hours, she feels lost, like a child again, grappling for her mother's hand to hold as they cross the street. It's jarring, and there's a space in her chest left empty by his absence.

She hasn't been _just Maka_ in months. Even when she went home, she still had Soul's nightly texts to look forward to. And for the first time in a long time, she allows herself to admit that she's scared. Loneliness is the kind of sadness that tears someone apart little by little, as time goes by, and more than anything else, she doesn't want to be that girl alone with her books and her anger again, hating reality, hating _herself_ for not being strong enough to protect anyone.

Patience was never her virtue.

Maka clutches her fists and stares at his prone form. Watching him go limp and collapse to the floor, still clutching that scythe, had been trying enough on her, but watching him lay there, unconscious, with tense brows and pale, pale skin is something else entirely. She'd taken the necessary precautions - several steps back, to put space between them, just in case something did happen - but it all seems so ludicrous now. Soul would never do anything to hurt her. It goes against his code; he's not malicious, or skeezy, or _greedy,_ like she'd believed men to be for so many years, but instead loyal, and trustworthy, with warm hands and secret smiles and a shoulder to cry on.

Perhaps too loyal for his own good. She's never once seen him speak to anyone else. She's never once expected him to offer his soul as tribute to her cause. She never wanted him to.

And now she waits.

Her entire being races at the first sign of life. His shoulders jerk first, tense, jagged in motion, before he coughs brokenly on her tiled floor. Instincts scream _help him, help him, what're you waiting for, stupid girl?_ but she remains glued to her spot, eyes wide, breath shallow. Soul is alive, and he's _moving_ \- albeit slowly - but she still waits, hands trembling at her sides, unsure. She finds herself calling out, " _Soul?"_ cautiously as he sputters all the more. His voice has always been a little low, a little rough, but there's a grit to his coughing that she can't quite place. And not quite in the sexy, mysterious kind of way that he always tries to pull off - but like his body is exhausted, like his throat is rubbed raw, like it's physically taxing for him to force his voice out.

He doesn't answer, so she asks, "Soul?" again, with her heart in her throat. The fluorescent light above them flickers and he groans, elbows looking sharper than ever, fingers splayed across the dusty floor.

And when he finally looks up, his eyes are red.

.

 _For a while, everything goes right._

 _Until it doesn't._

.

He looks a lot like Soul, but the way he moves is all off.

Her Soul is king of lazy movement, of soaking up the sun and napping on his arms and moving so gradually, half a step behind her, swinging his keys around his finger while his other hand held on tight to hers. _Her_ Soul whistles while he watches her work, drumming his fingers on his knee, quiet half-smile pulling at his lips every time she glances up from her notes at him. He is kind. He is harmless.

He does not have horns protruding from his soft, messy tuft of hair. He also does not have razor sharp teeth - almost animalistic in nature - and yet there he stands, this disturbing imposter, with a serrated smile that splits his face, still clutching that damned scythe like a lifeline. Only now it's not quite a beacon of hope, not anymore, and Maka feels her heart plunge into her stomach with a discouraging splash.

"S… Soul?" she asks again, tiny, with denial bleeding through her every pore. No, no, _no._ This can't be happening.

The creature before her tilts his head, licks his lips, his tongue too long, too pointed. "Well," he says, voice thick with reverb, caught halfway between slimey condescendence and the low, warm rumble she dreams about, "that wasn't so hard, now was it?"

Her legs shake, knees lock. "Stop."

"Stop what?" he asks, very nearly cackling. He extends his arms, shifts the scythe, as if testing, considering his options with a massive weapon at his disposal. "Isn't this what you wanted, Maka?"

"Of _course_ this isn't what I wanted! I told you that, I just-"

His grin widens cruelly. " _You_ wanted the power to save the world. Well, now you've got it. Or… _I've_ got it," he purrs, and Maka wouldn't even dream of melting, not now, not ever. "But then again, I've always had it, haven't I? Just needed a body. And now I have one."

She's going to be sick. There's no way around it, not with the guilt and anger and everything else overwhelming her trembling body. Bile bubbles up in her like apologies and one hand cups over her face, revolted, as she watches the devil invading her partner's body run a finger along the magnificent blade of the scythe. The red of the blade glints violently in the flickering light; the only thing more threatening is the shade of his eyes, dark and angry like spilled blood, stained hands.

"He put up a good fight," he hums, "but he's just a little too weak for me, hm? Stupid boy would do _anything_ for you. Told me so himself! And so he did."

"Stop," Maka hisses again, and her blood boils, heartbeat thundering in her ears. Maybe she'll get sick later. Maybe her vomit will melt the demon from Soul's bones. Maybe she'll drop dead and wake up in another time, where all of this is just a nightmare. "Just- stop talking and give him back!"

"He did it for you," the demon says, laughing, laughing, and Maka clutches the sword in her hand, feeling so very impossibly powerless. Steel can only harm the host and not the soul. Steel can only cut and make bleed, and Soul's body is still so very human, so very flesh and bone. One good slice could cut him open, but the demon could still roam free. "How does it feel, knowing your boy risked it all just to make you happy?"

With angry tears streaming down her cheeks, she spits, "Do I _look_ happy?"

He giggles again, and for a moment, she's afraid he'll do that black-bleeding thing again - worried, still, somehow, that the black blood will stain Soul's shirt, will damage his appearance and belongings - but he wobbles on his knees instead, as if still unstable on his land legs. "Ooh, he _does_ hate it when you cry," he says gleefully, " _He_ wants to wipe your tears, but _I_ think I might take a peek at that pretty little soul of yours instead."

The implications are not lost on her, and Maka finds herself gasping, " _Soul!_ " again, loud enough to echo in her otherwise empty lab, loud enough to shake the demon to his stolen bones. He pauses, and Maka takes a brave step forward, only feeling half as commanding as the slam of her boot sounds, but if there is even half a chance that her Soul is in there somewhere, fighting to break free, she won't lay a hand on him. She thinks of his smiling face and warm hands and the roar of his motorcycle beneath her and how free she'd felt, clutching herself to him while the wind whipped through her pigtails, and knows that giving him up is as impossible as accepting defeat.

Maka has tasted loneliness once and won't go back. She can't do back. Not now that she knows what companionship feels like, what unconditional, unwavering loyalty and affection can do to a person.

His mind and body might be sick with a demonic parasite, but the soul is still sound. She has made magic happen once, and she will make it happen again.

"I know you can do this," she finds herself saying, and her boots clatter as she takes another reckless step. That damned scythe is very nearly within swinging distance but she doesn't care - there's a trust she holds for him that goes deeper than any mortal fear. "You're stronger than this! It's your body, and your choice-!"

"My body!" he screeches. " _MY body!_ "

"And nobody else gets to make your decisions but you!" Maka continues, with fire in her veins and her heart on her sleeve. "Where's that boy who told me I didn't have to do this alone? I know he's in there, Soul! I need him! I need _you!_ "

His body quakes with a great moan and the scythe teeters dangerously, the toe of the blade clattering to the floor. Maka doesn't even flinch, too busy staring her demons in the eye, too busy hoping red will give way to safe, warm brown.

"You can-"

"BACK," he roars, one hand ruffled so thoroughly in his mad hair, entire body trembling with effort. "Get back, _stupid,_ you're so _stupid_ -!"

"No-!"

" _Maka,_ " he says thickly, shaking all over, and at once she knows this is Soul, her Soul, looking so _devastated._ Having even just this much control over his own body appears to be painful, and his face screws up in agony as he pulls on his own hair, sweat prickling at his forehead. "Maka, you've got to- get out, you have to-"

She can't move fast enough, and trips over her own feet trying to embrace him. "Soul-"

" _No!_ " he shrieks, clamoring back, taking shallow, rapid breaths. "N-No, you can't- 'M gonna hurt you, Maka, and I can't… you've gotta.."

When it appears he's unable to spit it out and stares, quite pointedly, at the steel in her hands, Maka puts two and two together and says, " _No._ "

"You don't… haaa, you don't have a choice," he says, and doesn't even have the strength to crack that heartwarming grin of his, she realizes. This is a shell of the smiling, laughing boy she's spent so many afternoons with, and it's her fault. It's no one's fault but her own. "You've gotta- 'nd then… scythe, put him back-"

"I'm not hurting you," she says, shaking her head, and oh, there are those tears again, streaming down her cheeks like little waterfalls. They seem to give him control, only for a moment, and he gapes at her before writhing again, quaking, as if taking a breath is physically taxing for him. "I can't-"

"Maka, you have to, you don't have a choice, I don't- _please_ don't let me kill you, please, I can't-"

As if she could cry harder. Who is she to deny a dying man his last wish? Who is she to deny him anything, when he has done so much for her? When he has given up everything for her, just for a chance to make her happy, to make her feel like she's accomplished something?

Choking, she takes a step back and clutches her sword. Soul seems to get it, for a moment, there's a relentless faith in his eyes, rippling through that disheartening shade of red before it cracks and that laugh is bursting from his lips again, mad, and control is lost. Maka knows without a doubt that that look will haunt her for the rest of the life - because even after she's doomed him, he still finds a way to look at her as if she is not damaged goods, as if she isn't evil for dabbling in dangerous witchcraft. He still finds it in him to look at her as if she's something worth protecting, even after she invited a demon to tear him apart.

There are good people who do bad things, and bad people that make good choices, and Maka doesn't know where she falls anymore.

"Your fault, your fault, _all your fault,_ " the demon babbles, and Soul's body straightens sickeningly, raising the scythe, ready to reap. Void of his warmth, his eyes are nothing more than windows to the pits of hell, and Maka can't look at him without feeling overwhelming regret melt her resolve. "But it's my turn now, my turn, and it's all thanks to you-"

Maka will not go quietly. For Soul, she races forward, steel deadly in her grip, and he bleeds black as he falls.

.

There's just _so much blood,_ and she goes down with him, unable to maintain the false strength in her legs. Her sword has punctured his chest, and the scythe clatters to the floor, heavy as it slams down. Her knees skid across the tiled floor, bare and rapidly staining with thick, black liquid, goopy and _grody_. Soul's body shudders as it bleeds, gushes and oozes as Maka's trembling hands grip the handle of the murder weapon and slices down his middle, diagonally, until she's made a clean cut and his chest is wide open.

She doesn't even notice his eyes roll back. She's too busy crying as she claws her way into his chest, blood up to her elbows, sobbing, "I love you, _I love you,_ please don't go, I'm so sorry, Soul, _Soul,_ " and clutches the murky blue ball of light in her bloodied hands to her chest.

She's made magic happen once, and she'll do it again.


	3. Chapter 3

Maka doesn't leave her bed for three days.

No matter how many times she scrubs her hands and cries and gets sick, she can't seem to get the blood off her hands. Her hands are rubbed raw and pink but she can't unsee the thick darkness painting her arms, can't unsee his bones and his heart, torn open by the clumsy blunt of her blade. It takes her hours to get the blood out from beneath her fingernails. It takes her only seconds to watch a soulless body disintegrate. It will take her a lifetime to forget the look on Soul's face when she plunged the blade deep.

It _wasn't Soul,_ she tells herself. It was not Soul that she murdered, was not Soul that was in charge of his body, and was not Soul that spit such terrible things at her in a direct attempt to tear her apart. And yet it doesn't lessen her guilt. It certainly doesn't make her feel less like a murderer.

The last time she was that close to a corpse, it was her mother. The last time she saw a human soul, it was her _mother's,_ as it was ripped out of her by a kishin.

The warmth of Soul's still buzzes through her trauma-stained fingers.

Maka pulls her blanket over herself and wonders if it would be better to waste away or turn herself in. Surely there's a fate worse than death? Because she deserves it - eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, but Maka would rather someone rip _her_ soul out and devour it nosily than to simply disappear altogether. After the carnage she's caused, it might be poetic, karmic justice to offer herself up to the monsters that prowl the dark, abandoned streets at night. She doubts her soul is even a little bit tasty anymore, doubts that even monsters that make a living off of the theft of life would want her.

Soul was an important person. Not just because he was unusually kind, or because he told bad jokes and drove a stupid, gaudy motorcycle and had a bit of a sweet tooth, but because he was an Evans. He was the son of the man who funded her entire project, and she took his body from him and put a sword through his damned chest. Soul could have gone on to have a happy life. He could have married a wealthy, powerful girl and lived on. He could have helped save the world. Soul still had the world at his fingertips, hadn't felt loss firsthand, hadn't known what it felt like to be broken and angry and sick to his stomach with grief.

And she loved him. She loved him, she loved him, she loved him. More than she's ever loved anybody else. He'd had such a way of making her feel safe, of making her feel like just a normal girl amidst the end of the world. He had no expectations, no wandering eyes, no ill intentions. Soul was loyal. Soul might've - she _thought_ he might've - no, no, he could've loved her back, and she'd taken his option away before he'd even had the chance to tell her himself.

Maka thinks having her soul eaten clean out of her chest would hurt worse than this.

Every time she closes her eyes, it's like she can still see him, smiling at her through the late afternoon sun. He's nothing but a ghost of the past, thriving only in her memories, and in her dreams, where he's only the demon who towers over her with bloodlust in his eyes half of the time. Only his kindness doesn't hurt any less. Somehow, she thinks it hurts more.

Her stomach complains nosily at her negligence. Maka kicks her feet over the side of her bed and stands, shakily, dizzy with hunger and exhaustion, as she pads her way to her bedroom door. When she flicks her light on, the scythe seems to glow beneath her crooked, wobbling ceiling fan.

Of course she brought it home with her. Was she supposed to leave it at the scene of the crime? Leave her soul-bound regret on the lab floor, surrounded by all of her notes and work? It felt wrong. And after everything, she still feels attachment to the damn weapon. The demon is inside of it. Part of Soul, by extension, is inside of it.

She might get sick again. Maka waddles over by her turtle tank to fish out another shopping back. On her way back up, color catches her eye.

There's a rainbow on the back of Leo's shell.

 _Soul painted her turtles._

Her knees hit the floor and she dry heaves into the crinkled plastic back, nose leaking, her tears hot on the raw, scrubbed skin beneath her eyes.

.

Just when she thinks she can't cry anymore, she's mistaken.

Her pity party lasts for two more days, until the voice in the back of her head (that sounds eerily like her no-nonsense mama) reminds her that eating more than just a packet of instant ramen a day is necessary and laying around feeling bad for herself won't stop the monsters under her bed from running rampant and Maka forces herself to her feet. It is no easy task, hauling herself for a shower, or brushing her teeth, but it has to be done, and Mama didn't raise no quitter.

She might've raised a killer, but she didn't raise a quitter.

Maka spits her toothpaste into the sink, turns on the faucet, and wonders when her face got so thin. Wonders, too, if Soul would think she was pretty with dark circles under her eyes and limp hair and a spattering of stray toothpaste on her upper lip, but thoughts like that are toxic and make the dread curl deeper in her stomach.

The rest of her routine is pure muscle memory. Brush her hair. Tie it into twin pigtails so it's out of her face. Yes, good. Don't think about the scythe you'll be lugging to your lab today. Don't think about the crippling silence and how his motorcycle is still probably still parked outside your door, whatever you do.

Mama's brave little girl is more of a fuckup than originally intended. Maka stuffs toast down her throat mindlessly and robotically makes a grab for her scythe.

Her entire body buzzes with contact. The metal is cold, but her soul feels warm, and before she even has a chance to gather her bearings, the devil is whispering, " _Murderer,"_ in her ear, only he sounds a lot like Soul and she's wholly unprepared to hear his voice so soon after his passing. It's almost revolting, how much she's missed the sound of his voice, but not like this, never like this.

Maka closes her eyes, opens her soul, and everything goes dark.

.

When she wakes up, she's in her soulspace again, only it's a lot less bright and the dim fog is licking her ankles before the demon has made an appearance. Whatever that means, it probably can't be good.

"Don't look so righteous anymore, do you?" he hisses, in Soul's voice, and Maka squeezes her eyes shut. Footsteps echo beside her and stop only once she feels the presence before her. It's funny, but she almost feels like the demon is taller, now, and bigger, and- Maka cracks her eyes open to find a twisted, serrated smile donning her partner's face. "Hey there, braniac."

Maka sucks in a thick breath, and says, "Don't call me that."

"But you used to blush whenever I called you that."

"When _he_ called me that," she hisses, hands shaking, "not _you._ Cut the act and go back to normal, this is cruel-"

" _No,_ " he says, stepping forward, and Maka finds herself moving back in tandem. "Do you know what's cruel? Tricking me into playing guinea pig for you, Maka. What's a poor boy to do when he's being manipulated into playing with fire? Give in, of course. He doesn't know any better. He doesn't know how _cruel_ humanity can be."

"I wasn't-"

"Wasn't _what?_ " he sneers, voice callous, and _he's so close,_ closer than he's ever been before, warm breath on her parted lips. He steals her breath with an angry curl of his lips, nose pressed to hers. "You're not the only one with a life. You're not the only one with something to lose."

Tenacious, angry Maka pushes him back with shaking hands. Her bravery is a front, but it's all she has, and in this mad, mad world, there is nothing left to latch onto but her sheer power of will. And this monster - only part man, surely, and part demon, horns and claws and all - will not break her, cannot break her, no matter how sweet his voice and how familiar his form. This is not the Soul she allowed mercy. This is not the Soul that asked her to finish him off, so the roles weren't reversed, so he wasn't standing over her dead body with blood on his hands.

But still - it's hard, and demon Soul drags his pointed tongue over his lips, looking her over like she's dinner. "You just couldn't let me go, could you, Maka? Couldn't have let me rest in peace?"

"Stop it," she says, tears bleeding through her venom. "You're not him."

"How do you know who I am anymore?" he asks, and his hands are still agonizingly beautiful as he holds one out to her, smile twisted. His palm lays flat and Maka doesn't dare accept the invitation. "I'm him and he's me. One can't exist without the other."

" _You're_ just angry that I didn't let you roam free," Maka finds herself hissing back, half bravado, half temper. "You're in the scythe again, and-"

"And so is Soul," the demon says, almost gleefully, in their own voice, and there's a shining, gleaming moment where he is all monster, teeth glinting violently in the brightness of her soul. "He's here, too. Don't you feel him? You need us. You still need _my_ help if you want to get anything done. The world is in ruins, Maka. What's it going to be?"

His hand never wavers. And Maka doesn't flinch, even for a second, even though the ice in her veins and the painful twisting in her stomach.

"I don't understand," she mutters.

The demon smiles and Soul takes a step forward. "I can't work with relentless heroism," he says, woefully both monster and man, "but this? This will be interesting. I can _definitely_ work with whatever's going on in your soul now, _bookworm._ "

It's an offer, Maka realizes belatedly, An offer of power. Her mind whizzes, cogs turning almost frantically - the power to cut through madness and insanity is welcoming her with open arms, but at what cost? The devil smiles at her like a lover, with teeth sharper than ever, eyes the color of bloodlust, and she's sure if her mama could see her now, she wouldn't be smiling. What, pray tell, has her brilliant little girl gotten herself into? These are not the kinds of situations good girls get themselves into. This is not the reality morally sound people live.

Her soul burns brighter, and for a moment, they're both blind. It's only when Maka feels his fingers - the same long, pretty fingers she's held hundreds of times - slide between her own that she knows she's doomed herself for life.

.

One scythe down, plenty more weapons to go. There's a whole army, after all, and only so many months left before the smog of madness starts to infect even safe places like Shibusen.

.

With great power comes great responsibility.

The demon is both an ally and a foe. His wit is great, and she's never had quite such a brilliant strategist whispering in her ear. For all of his malice and poison, he is wise, and sharp, and knows more about the anatomy of a soul than any of Arachne's notes and Eibon's works combined. Maka might be inclined to think this partnership is actually a blessing - _if,_ of course, it didn't come at the cost of her most important person's life. It is both bitter and sweet, having such knowledge rumbling menacingly in the back of her mind - but _mostly_ bitter.

Binding demons to weapons isn't even a struggle anymore. After doing it once, the rest is as easy as 1-2-3. It seems as though dark entities flock toward her now, and she's not sure what that says about her as a person - her soul had once served as her internal lighthouse, blinding the monsters that prowl on the wicked, twisted things that underlay human fundamentality, but now it's as though her light has dimmed to a glow. Whatever it means, it certainly can't be _good,_ but if it means making deals with devils a breeze, she's in no position to complain.

Everything is different. It's like all life has been drained from her lab - like the colors have dimmed, like the sunspray along the corner of her desk has become nothing more than stale, faded highlighter, smudged along her margins, neglected notespace.

Sometimes, Maka thinks in another life they could've been lovers. The demon - _Soul_ , he is Soul, now- thinks she should shut her mouth before she damns anyone else.

There is malice. There is anger. Above all else, there is contempt, festering like a wound, and a voice in her head reminding her that this whole mess is her fault and she's a terrible, terrible person. As if she needed the reminder - there's nothing else in her head but guilt and an almost obsessive determination to finish what she's started. She owes it to him, after all. Soul's sacrifice can't go in vain.

"Wouldn't have been a sacrifice at all if you weren't so needy," he hisses. "You shouldn't have made me do it."

Maka bites her lip and draws blood. _I didn't want this,_ she thinks. _How could you even think I wanted this? How could anyone want this?_

He simpers for a moment. "You chose this, didn't you? Sorry if your reality isn't so pretty anymore. Want to take a walk in my shoes for a bit and see how it feels to be crammed in a scythe all day? Or worse, your _brain_ \- _fuck,_ all you ever do is think about science and whine and cry, I'm sick of it-"

She deserves this. She knows she does. But it doesn't make swallowing it down any easier. Had it been anyone else's voice tearing her down, she probably could've grinned and beared it - but it's Soul's, and they'd almost been something _special_ for a brief, fleeting moment in time, and now they're very not. Or maybe they are, depending on how one might look at it. He'll be with her forever. Soul is always there.

Soul makes a retching sound. "There's better company than a know-it-all _witch_ like you." A pause, and then, "Not even a _good_ witch."

"Good enough to save you," she grits, pencil clutched tight in her hand.

"Define _save._ "

Maka forces breath through her nose. "You're not dead. You… you h-have a _body-_ "

"I have a fucking hunk of metal, _Maka._ I can't even move on my own. Can't eat. Can't sleep. Have to listen to your whining all day, and you snot everywhere when you cry. Try not to get it on the blade next time."

Maka shakes her head in a vain attempt to scare away the thoughts swarming like flies, but it's to no avail - how can she escape someone who is tied to her very soul? And how can she want to, when he still sounds the same when he laughs? He snorts at her but shuts up, and Maka bites her own lip as she scoots around the desk and tries not to focus on the empty chair sitting on the other side.

Soul thinks about planting his ass there and kicking his feet up while he watches her work, and Maka's not sure what to make of it. He's composed of such opposing ends; most of the time, he is the snarling, malicious devil on her shoulder, simultaneously building her up with wisdom and tearing her self worth down with his truths, but sometimes he has shining moments where he is the quiet, introspective boy he'd once been. Sometimes, she feels his overwhelming warmth in her chest, helplessly allowing him to tangle as he wishes, and sometimes - like now - she's hit with his softer thoughts, his sobering memories of motorcycle rides and the feeling of lips on the back of her hand.

But she cannot split him in two. He is still Soul deep down, whether she likes it or not, and she owes him the salvation of the world. She owes him to live on in his stead and finish what they'd started.

.

A postcard comes for her a week later, with crude, sprawling lettering taking up half of the space and careful cursive decorating the other.

(Demonic) Soul mocks her for the excited fluttering in her chest. Maka buries her feelings deep and brushes her thumb over the ink thoughtfully, as if trying to commit the shapes of the words and feelings behind them to memory. "Who's it from, your side guys?"

"Don't be dumb," she huffs. "It's just from my dad and my old neighbor."

"Hell," he says lowly, and something rumbles in her chest, " _childhood lovers._ Gross."

With a click of her tongue, Maka flips over the card to admire the image. She figures Papa picked out the card, because it's a picture of the Eiffel tower, and in her youth she'd always sort of wanted to travel. What an old card. She wonders what he would've gone through to get it. She also wonders how Black*Star managed to leave his mark, too, and fight off her father's exuberant affection to get a word in. For a moment, she's impressed - and flattered, oddly.

It's been months since she's last seen her Papa. And regardless of the terms they'd been on when he left - and regardless of whether or not she'd approved of his vices (women and sex, lots of sex) - he was her father, her only living parent, and sometimes it was nice to fall back on the one person who she new loved her regardless. And Black*Star, no matter how obnoxious, still always found time for her, be it vigorous, stress-relieving workouts or staying up late together to watch the news, bone-tired and delirious on 5-hour-energy.

To say she didn't miss them would be a lie. But with Soul around, she'd found a way to focus less on the bad (and the missing) and instead channel her energy into other things, like late-night motorcycle rides and the giddy, excited tingling in her fingers when he first walked her to her door. Silly teenage things she'd never really had the chance to experience before.

Soul snorts again. "Didn't know you had a boyfriend in the military."

She presses the card to her chest and breathes out, slowly, slowly. "Why would I need one of those? I don't have time for boys."

It's like she can see him quirking that sharp grin of his, dark eyes wild beneath the mask of his hair. She doesn't want to think on how deeply she's internalized every maddening crook of his lips, and how she'd never gotten the chance to see if they tasted like malt and vanilla. Soul doesn't have a physical form anymore. Soul can't write her letters or hold her hand. He can only hold her heart in a vice and squeeze tighter and tighter until she finally pops.

He laughs lowly, and Maka presses the postcard closer to her chest, as if she can hide it away and save it for later, as if she'll ever have a moment of peace again. "Had enough time for me."

"You're special," she blurts.

His radio silence is telling. Maka slips the postcard into her desk and tries not to think on which half of Soul heard that.

.

Some days are worse than others.

Without Soul to ground her, Maka works harder than ever before. It's like the safety lock has been broken, and stubborn, workaholic Maka has evolved into mindless machine Maka, who does nothing but ration out vials of black blood and summon questionable demons into the mortal world. Some days - the bad days - she skips meals to get more done, doesn't think about the repercussions of pulling all-nighters, works until her eyes hurt and she can't function anymore.

Her actions might be questionable, but her righteous sense of duty rings louder than anything else. It's just another late night. Just another demon sword.

"Hey," Soul murmurs. It's hard to focus on anything else but his voice, so crisp in the murky haze of the night. She blinks sleepily, halfway to dreamland. "Maka."

"I'm awake," she says.

"Maka, go to _bed._ "

"What do you care," Maka huffs, pressing her hands to her face. She drags her fingers down her cheeks, pushes her bangs from her eyes, haphazardly tries to straighten her tangled pigtails. Realistically, she knows he's right - she's finally getting a chance to step out onto the battlefield tomorrow and put all of her hard work to good use, and it'd be much safer to engage in combat while she's well rested - but lulls in work allows the guilt to seep through.

It's almost startling how clear his voice is. "I'm worried about you."

He's polarizing. It sort of makes her head spin, and there's a terrible hurt trying to claw through her chest. " _Soul,_ " she breathes, and he makes a sort of sad humming in response, somewhere deep in her soul. It sounds like she's talking to herself, and nobody else is in the room - but it's okay, because she's kind of not okay and there hasn't been anyone else in her lab since he bled out on her floor. Maybe he's damned the place. Maybe he's christened it, and her, too, and she's the one who did the damning.

He's quiet for a moment, and she takes the chance to snivel and whimper and scrub the damp heat from her eyes. Patient. He's so very patient, and then, finally, he mutters, "I'm sorry."

" _You're-?_ I did this!" she gasps. _I did this to you. It was my work that did this to you._

Her thoughts are not her own anymore. Soul hears everything these days, whether she wants him to or not, whether he's in control or if his black-blood induced infection speaks for him. It's invasive. It's uncomfortable, especially, but there's nothing that can be done to remedy it.

Maka hears him grunt. "There's _something_ you can do."

"No."

"It's okay, you know," he says, and he's so hushed, devoid of all pretenses and jokes. She misses that smiling boy with ice cream smudged on his lip. "It's okay. You didn't mean for this to happen. You told me not to and I didn't listen. It's my own fault I wasn't strong enough."

Laughable. Maka chokes on the absurdity of it - he's her cracked foundation, and no matter the damage, he'll always be the one thing holding her up. Even now, with his rubble at her feet and her home in shambles, her heart still finds a way to gather his pieces and find strength. Soul is quite literally in her head, in her very soul - doesn't he know he's the strongest person in her life? Doesn't he know the bravery he inspires in her?

Soul snorts. "Like you need me to be brave, Maka. You could kick ass with or without me."

But she wants it with him. She wants a lot of things with him. Things she can't have anymore.

She doesn't blush. The days of flustered, excitable crushes are long gone. She doesn't have that right anymore, not after what she'd done to him. Perhaps she's her father's daughter after all, doomed to murder any semblance of romance - perhaps she's an Albarn through and through, and she should keep her unreasonable desires to herself. Letting herself trust him had lead onto to his demise. Letting herself _want_ him had only lead to a broken heart and the ghost in her head.

Her thoughts seem to sober him. Soul goes quiet for a long moment, and for a second, she's afraid he's lost control again, that he is all malice and twisted words again, but then he mumbles her name and she knows he's still her Soul. "I heard it, you know," he says slowly, and despite it all, Maka feels her face heat. "When you were crying. I heard what you said."

The tears are hot and she blinks them away. "I did a lot of that."

It's a fact he can't argue. Maka sorts her notes into folders and shuts her notebook, stuffs her pens into her desk, switches the light off. The darkness is almost comforting, but the warm metal of his handle is a constant anchor, cold and tangible in her palm.

Soul whispers, "Me too, you know," and she clutches him that much tighter. _Love you too._

.

Fighting is therapeutic.

There is relief in throwing herself into the heat of battle. Every time she takes a hit it grounds her, steels her, and it's almost like she's been looking for punishment in her own way. Training will make her stronger. Putting herself in danger will relieve the anxiety tearing at her tissue-paper nerves, if only for the time being. It's a lot of adrenaline, a lot of constant motion, a lot of distraction, and demon Soul snarls in the back of her head, reminding her to dodge left, pull right, _get your stupid face out of the way, moron, you'll look even less attractive with a black eye._

 _Her_ world might have come to a crumbling close, but the kishin Asura still slurps down another militant soul twice a day, and she doesn't have any more time to sit around and feel sorry for herself. There's a heroic urge in her, one that shouts and screams and takes every one of Soul's combat-driven suggestions in consideration as she moves. This is her work, after all. This is what she was granted money and space to do. This is what she has thrown away her life for.

For Mama. For Black*Star and Papa, wherever they are, and all of the other little girls with parents, teetering on the brink of disaster and still clinging desperately for a sense of normality.

For Soul.

 _Soul_ growls. "Head out of the clouds, missy."

He's right. He's always right. Stupid girl.

.

She's twenty-three when she kills her first kishin.

It's on her birthday. There's no cake, no candles, no presents clothed in glittery wrapping paper or ribbons. There is blood staining her steel-toed boots, blood rimming the hem of her ironed skirt, blood turning the ashy gold of her hair a stale, crinkled red. She smells like a graveyard, and probably looks a little bit like she belongs in one, too. Her scythe's blade drips red. The demon inside giggles gleefully, tipsy on madness and bloodlust and murder, probably. There's such a mishmash of desires coming from him - a brew of _moremoremore_ and stray thoughts of the scrape on her thigh, where the kishin's claws had caught tender skin.

Her age is less of a celebration than the kill is. Maka is certainly not the first to kill a kishin, not nearly - but she's the first to hold a tainted soul in her hands, sticky and scarlet. It seems to fizz, Maka notes clinically, and vibrates in her grasp the way Soul's hadn't quite. Temptation whispers like a devil over her shoulder, and the scientist in her wonders what it would taste like - what is so delicious about a soul, what is so empowering about a murderous lifeforce condensed into spirit in her palms? - but she locks the thought away tight and blames the monster in her weapon.

It's like she can _hear_ him licking his lips. "Taking down Asura would be real easy if we slurped that one down."

"Don't be dumb," Maka says. "You know we can't do that. It's not right."

He seems to simper. "And locking someone away in a heap of metal is? What's embracing a little demonhood if you're already a little bit witch, huh?"

It's not what Soul would want and she knows it. It's not what Mama would want, either, and not what Maka wants, but the soul still burns a spot in the fabric of her gloves and she sets it free. It floats like a paper lantern, glowing, _glowing_ as it flutters higher and higher. Soon it's only a pinprick of tainted light in the sky, stray fireflies, and Maka lets her thumb brush over the blood staining the arch of Soul's blade.

He chuffs. "Waste of a perfectly good soul."

"You and I both know that was not a good soul," Maka retorts. "You need a bath."

"Gonna sponge bathe me, sweetheart?"

She very nearly curls inward. " _Don't_ call me that."

He chortles, but she can hear the echo of apologies in the quiet between his laughter. She would reply, if only to settle things, but someone else says her name - someone with flesh and bone - and Maka looks up instinctively, eyes wide.

What blue eyes he has. More importantly, though, are what nice _cheekbones_ he has, and how much he shockingly resembles Soul. Maka decides, as he offers her a practiced, polite smile, that this man is most definitely an Evans, and Soul's resulting scoff solidifies her assumption. But god, does looking at him break open something raw in her, like a cracked egg on a countertop. He's missing Soul's dimples and Soul's dark eyes, but it's impossible to deny the similarities. It's like Soul has been brought back to life in a slightly taller, slightly broader body, with firm shoulders and a confident air about him that had been absent in his past incarnation.

Soul's double offers a hand to her. "Congratulations on your first kill, Albarn."

 _Not her first kill,_ the demon hisses.

Maka mentally swats him like a fly. "I, oh," she stumbles eloquently. She goes to take his hand, but looks down and catches the blood all over her gloves and backtracks, flinching. "Thank you."

He smiles and wiggles his fingers. "Wearing gloves too. It's alright, I'm not afraid of a little grime. I'm Wes. My father sent me to keep an eye on you and see how your research was coming along."

His hands are warm and his fingers long, just like his brother's. Soul's brother. Maka's stomach curls and she swallows thickly, wondering if the guilt will finally swallow her alive and spew her truths like venom. She manages to keep a grasp on herself and shakes his hand firmly. "Maka," she says hesitantly. "My name is Maka. I don't like going by my father's name."

Wes blinks, and for a moment, that mega-watt smile and gleaming air about him dims. Before she has a chance to analyze, he hums, low, and tucks his hands back into his pockets. "You sound just like my brother."

"Ah," Maka blurts. "You have a brother?"

He nods, and Soul rumbles in reply as well, tone almost mournful. "He's gone missing," Wes admits, though he's only half of the dazzling Evans heir she'd witnessed only moments before.

Vaguely, she remembers the bits and pieces of Soul's family that he'd told her about. Mostly he'd spoken of his parents - namely his father - and how he'd hated the mistreatment, the scorn, the expectations that came with being the second born son. Sometimes, though, he spoke of his mother, and - even more rarely - his brother. In life, Soul had been private with his thoughts, private with his desires and anxieties alike. It's almost ironic that now he's the loudest thing in her head.

Of course people are looking for Soul. He was never a nobody, no matter how deeply he'd believed it himself; he had a reputation, a name - and a brother who cares, clearly, judging by the crease between Wes' brows and his voice's sobering concern. Soul Evans is a missing person, a privileged boy whose family can afford to look for him, whose death could never go unheard, and there's not even a body to uncover. Maka cleaved his soul clean out. She'd not only taken his life but his soul away, and a body can never exist without the life force that powers it.

Maka clutches her scythe tighter and wonders if Wes can see the blood she'll never been able to scrub clean. "I'm so sorry," she mumbles, voice thick.

 _It's not like I would've amounted to anything anyway,_ Soul hisses in her ear. She doesn't know which side of him is in control anymore, but she swallows and brushes her thumb along the length of his handle anyway, as if it can possible soothe him or quiet his thoughts. _They only care because a missing son looks bad. Makes them look weak. Like they can't control their own family._

Wes sighs deeply. "If you see him," he begins, contradictory to the belligerent voice in her head, "could you let me know? You don't have to go to my father or anything, just tell me. I promise I won't tell anyone and I promise you won't get in trouble."

She bites her lip until she tastes the tang of blood. "Of course," Maka finds herself muttering, bones chilled, heart racing in her chest. Soul purrs something about getting away with murder. "I mean, I don't know what I would- I'm in my lab a lot of the time, and when I'm not, I'm- I'm doing _this,_ " she says, gesturing to the kishin blood on her clothes, dripping from her scythe.

"You never know," Wes says. "He could be anywhere."

He doesn't know the half of it.

.

Maka doesn't sleep soundly that night.

It's like being asleep but also not. Her body is resting, sure, but her mind is awake, alive with insecurity and anxiety and the white-hot guilt that seems to serve as her blood nowadays, pumping to keep her alive. Everything is dark around her, lightless, and it almost feels like she's floating, floating off of her stale bedsheets and into this haze of bleariness. Maka could choke on it.

She tosses and turns but there's nowhere to go. It's like she's in a dream but not, simultaneously aware of everything and unable to decide how, exactly, she can exist like this. Like soul-hopping, soul-speaking, _soul resonance,_ even - and before anything else comes to fruition, there's a faint glow of a lamp and the click of dress shoes on tiled floor. Her bones become tangible, muscles working, and Maka pulls herself to sit just in time to watch a flicker of a man part red curtains.

He's dressed to the nines. Cufflinks, pinstriped suit, blood red shirt, looking broad and tall in ways she'd missed so dearly. He swallows, Adam's apple bobbing, and Maka watches him slide his hands into his pockets.

It's not real. It can't be real. She's dreaming, she's _dreaming,_ but he's here, smiling nervously and sadly in the murky light of his soul, sharp teeth reluctant daggers in his grin.

Mindful of boundaries, Soul keeps his distance, a careful three feet away from the edge of the bed where she sits, heeled feet pressed flat to the floor.

His soul is a little funny, a little musty, a little twisted. The decor is dark but still cheesy, somehow, all reds and blacks and dark shades, checkered tile and long, billowing curtains the color of blood. It smells a little like ink, a little like paper - and it's so damn dim, like he's afraid she won't like what she sees and forcefully shrouds himself, but she still knows it's him. How can it be anyone else, after all? Who has access to her soul this way?

She wonders what it would be like to touch him. She wonders if she even could. He lost his physical form months ago.

He clears his throat. "Uh. Hey."

Maka presses her palms into her lap, feeling the silk of her dress between her gloved fingers. What an odd thing to wear in her demon's soul. What an odd thing for him to _dream_ her in. It's a mature dress, sleek and black and silky, thin, fluttering to her ankles and fluttering out to expose strappy heels and the pale skin peeking out beneath. Her shoulders are cold and bare, and his gaze lingers a little too long on the shape of her collarbone, the curve of her neck.

She purses her lips. There are tears prickling away at her strength and Maka can only give so much before the wall surely crumbles. "I can't sleep."

He smiles, a little sweetly, a little sadly. "My fault?"

"Nothing's your fault."

It's clear he wants to say more but doesn't. She feels the same. She wants to ask how she's here, how he's managed to wrangle her into his soul space, where he can still maintain some sort of a body, some sort of false skin - and more than anything else, she wants to know why she's here, why now, why he isn't angry with her and spitting venom like his demon half.

Instead, he shifts his weight. "I don't know about that."

"Soul," she says, unable to help it. "You're dead."

He licks his lips, perhaps out of habit, but that pointed tongue is a grim reminder of his fate, and Maka feels a hiccup of a sob bubble in her chest. "I guess."

"You _are,_ " Maka blurts damply. "And I _killed_ you-"

"Hey, _hey,_ " he says, voice soothing, as he rounds her, hands careful and gentle as they cup her bare shoulders. His skin is heat but only because she dreams it so, only because it's what she wants, because his pretty hands are gone and his blood still stains her skin whenever she looks in the mirror. " _Stop it_. You didn't make me do anything, alright? I wanted to help you and so I tried. But I failed, got it? Not you. _I_ was the one who wasn't strong enough, and you took care of me before I could hurt you. You gave me my last wish."

She sucks in a breath. "I-"

"You killed me because I asked you to," Soul says firmly. "I asked you to. No matter what I say now, no matter what that demon tries to drill into your head- I chose this. You _let_ me make that choice. Nobody's _ever_ let me make choices before."

His eyes are so demanding in red. Something curls within her, something low, rooted in the pit of her belly.

Still, she gathers the silk of her skirt in her hand and says, "I let you die."

"You let me die before I hurt you. You kept me from hurting you," Soul breathes, and his voice goes low, hushed, as he presses his forehead to hers. "I couldn't- I couldn't control him. I still can't always control him. If I had done something to hurt you, I don't- I don't think I could've lived with myself."

She knows the feeling well. She lives with it every day, his voice a constant, looming reminder of the mess she's made. _How am I supposed to live with myself?_

Soul exhales and she feels his whole self deflate. Slouching shoulders. Crooked brows. Soft hands. "You're special."

"I _hurt_ you."

He leans back, sitting on his knees, hands sliding to rest over hers, cupping her knees. "You saved me," he says, as if it's been obvious all along. More than anything else, she wants to feel his fingers in the spaces between hers, wants to know what it would be like to kiss him, to be held, to feel safe, again, if even just for a moment. She wonders what he looks like under that sharp suit of his, wonders if his skin is marred from the incision she'd made. Wonders if he wants the same from her.

But this is his soul, and they're connected, so of course he hears everything she broadcasts for him like a siren's call. He's cute when he blushes, this demonic looking boy with the same pretty, sad eyes, just tinted a different color, and they're all a little twisted nowadays, so what's the harm?

He leans up and she presses his hands into her lap more firmly. " _Maka._ "

 _Please?_ her soul says. _I want to feel something. I want to feel_ _**you.**_

The moment she feels his soul's hum of agreement, she grabs his tie and tugs him over her. He has control, if he wants it. He can have all the control he wants if it makes him feel alive, if it tricks her into feeling alive again. And it will.. And it has to. And Soul's eyes are wildfires, dark and burning as he leans over her, knees digging into the bed, running his fingers through her hair.

"Maka," he says again, combing through her pigtail, thoughtfully tugging on the ribbon. "You should let me go, Maka."

 _A real boy, not a ghost in your head. Can't make you happy. I'm hurting you. I'm hurting you every time you wake up._

Stupid. He's stupid. He should know she doesn't want anyone but him. He should know she can't let him go, not while he has moments like this, not while he's still Soul half of the time, underneath the snarling demon she's buried him under. How can she kill what's left of him?

She answers him with a kiss. _Stop talking, Soul, I don't want to think right now._

She just wants to pretend his mouth is real and run her tongue along his teeth and drown herself in him, even if just for a moment. Kissing him is all sensation, all warm tongue and soft lips, things she's sure she's idealizing at this point but can't bring herself to worry about. Maka's spent way too long thinking about what it might be like to kiss him to stop now. This might be her last chance.

Soul's hands cradle her, blushing, damp cheeks and tangled hair, and he kisses her mouth again, only to trail his lips over her jaw, down her chin, tucking himself so nearly into the crook of her neck, muttering his affection like a prayer. His teeth are a reminder of reality, but he's extra careful with them as he grazes the length of her throat, tongue lingering in their wake.

It's too warm. They're wearing too many clothes. The silk might melt off of her and she might just die if she doesn't get to feel him soon. It's bittersweet torture, and Maka winds her fingers through his hair and tugs desperately.

A whine resonates deep in his throat. He sits up and yanks at his tie, both eager to be free and reluctant to distance himself from her at all. Lonely boy. Maka's fingers widdle away at the buttons of his shirt while he shrugs off his jacket, parting deep crimson to reveal more and more of his skin. And his scar, oh. Everlong proof of her mistake, marring the reflection of his skin, bisecting his chest in half, stitched crudely together by her shoddy witchcraft.

He kisses her hard. Or as hard as Soul can, she thinks, without a real mouth, but surely enough to distract her from his wound. There's no more blood, she tells herself. He can't bleed anymore. He has no more blood to give.

So he gives what he can. There's no body - not really, despite what their buzzing souls have dreamed up - but there is a heart, still, pumping despite his stained reality, and it's hers if she wants it. He doesn't have to say it out loud for her to know. It's legible in every breath he takes, every low-lidded look he gives her as she peels her gloves from her hands. With him, she takes and takes and takes, until he's running his hands down her sides and holding her hips in his hands.

He's murky in the low light. Mood lighting, probably; leave it to Soul to take aesthetic to heart even in the most dire of times. Doesn't he know that this is life or death? Doesn't he know he's keeping her alive with every flicker of his lashes, every kiss he dots along her jaw?

Maka guides his hands to the zipper on the seam of her dress. Soul licks his lips. He's warm, but his gaze is even warmer, and soon she's wearing nothing more than a pair of lace panties and her strappy heels.

It's the first time she's been naked in front of a boy, she thinks. And he is honored. And he is sad. And more importantly, he's scooting back, nestling himself between her thighs, unbearably warm as he presses opened-mouthed kisses to her ankle.

Soul takes his time slipping her heels from her feet. "You're beautiful, you know," he admits, sliding his hands down her calves, pressing himself between her thighs with deep reverence. "The most beautiful thing I've ever seen. You throw yourself into everything you do. It's like the world rolled up what was left of the sunshine and made you. "

It's too much, and Maka lets out a low whine, tossing her head aside to press her face into her arm. He can't look at her like that. It'll break her heart. She hiccups through a strangled sob when he rocks against her, hot and hard despite the slim layers between them. It's only when he notices she's crying does he drop her legs, just to brush the tears from her blushing face and kiss her until it hurts a little less.

She doesn't feel like sunshine. She feels like spiraling storm clouds and thunderous nightmares, but Soul still kisses her like she's worth something. Soul still brushes his finger over her slick clit and mutters her name when she bucks up against him.

"I love you," he rumbles, "I love you, I love you, I love you-"

Maka cries out as he fills her. Pretty fingers. Pretty, pretty fingers, reducing her to whimpering rubble. His hands are so pretty, meant for music and art and to be admired - not to please her, never to please her, but he seems to disagree and sinks deeper into her heat, feeling, shuddering. He kisses her, wet and messy on her mouth as she trembles, legs linking tight around his hips.

And he knows just how she likes it, knows just when to curl his fingers, knows how to stroke just around her clit so that she's a quivering, gasping mess. Soul's in her head again, poking about in little pockets of information, and she lets him in without a second thought.

"Don't want to hurt you anymore," Soul says, one hand on her thigh, untangling her legs just to spread her wide. "I just- I want to see you _happy,_ Maka."

She throws her head back into the pillows, helpless to his lead. " _Soul._ "

He seems mesmerized by the feel of her skin, the way her muscles in her thigh tense and move and work as she writhes beneath him. "Wish I was half as strong as you are," he blurts, so much more vocal than he'd been in life. "Wish I could've- would've-"

"Your _pants,_ Soul," she breathes, fingers curling in his sheets. "Please, please."

"I don't-"

 _I want to feel you,_ she thinks, and something in him clicks. His skin is false but tantalizing, still, and she's not sure if the body in which he makes love to her with is a mirror of his former self or her idealized version but she doesn't care. He's perfect no matter the shape and size. He's everything because he's Soul, _her Soul,_ and _that's it, that's_ _ **him**_ _, right there._

He's just right. It doesn't hurt. She might be projecting, but he's perfect, arms trembling around her as he surely adjusts to her heat, twitching and throbbing with the galloping of her heart. Every breath he takes is a little bit more sacred, as if any moment he could stop and be gone, again, surrendered to the foul demon that lurks the halls. The thought makes him lean over her and cage her in, long arms curling around her protectively, as he draws his hips back and sinks deep within her.

And ah. _Ah_. This must be it. This must be what forever feels like. This must be what made Mama so stupid about Papa. Maka feels a little stupid, too, but mostly she feels important and sad and clingy and in love, so in love, all at once.

It's her first. It could be her last, so she holds on tight, gripping his hair and working hard to memorize the feeling of his tongue.

Soul exhales audibly when she pulls his hair. He groans even louder than that when she digs her nails into his shoulders and bites his lip. There isn't a moment where she's not grasping for him, where he's not kissing some part of her or nibbling her earlobe - and not a moment goes by where Soul isn't actively trying to make her come undone and she's not trying to make him stay. She cries out, both because it's too great and because she _wants_ him to hear her wanting him, and if his cheek feels a little damp on hers she doesn't say anything at all. She just gasps his name again, and again, and _again,_ until he's pumping into her more desperately, his breath a broken mantra, hot on her neck.

Because she's a glutton for punishment, she asks for more. And he gives with a hand between her legs, all the while he leads her into frenzy. It's like dancing, only she's never been very good at that - but he's the picture of grace, all soft kisses to her throat and long strokes.

Something snaps, inevitably, and the thunderous, curling heat in low in her tummy shatters in an instant. It's like she's melting, or maybe _he's_ the one melting - and then she's breaking, torn wide open, heart in her throat and Soul's over her in an instant, as if he can kiss her better. She's vulnerable, thighs trembling, the light foggy and false around her, and the last thing she sees before she finally blacks out is Soul, still mumbling that he loves her over and over again.

.

She wakes up to an empty bed and a scythe leaning on her bedroom wall.

Maka wonders why she hoped for anything different.

.

Letting him go isn't an option.

It's not simple. Yes, half of the time, Soul is a blood-thirsty demon, and sometimes his commentary strikes a little too close to home and Maka is forced to scrub the tears from her eyes and pretend like everything is alright. And yes, half of the time, Soul calls her names and reminds her that everything is her fault, reminds her that she's dabbled in witchcraft and forbidden practices.

But half of the time he is not.

Half of the time he's the same Soul, if not a little more sad, a little more nostalgic. He reminds her to eat and tells her that it's not her fault, that he asked for this, that he loves her. Morality isn't black and white. _He_ is not just black and white. He's gray, now, simultaneously both a demon and a lover. Two parts to a whole. One can no longer exist without the other, and she is forced to accept that.

 _She's_ gray now, too.

It's why she can't let him go. Releasing his soul from the scythe and purifying him would allow him to depart and move on. She knows very well what she _should do,_ but actually going through with it is a whole another thing altogether. There isn't much left in the world worth protecting. Her father, her childhood friends, the potted cactus sitting in her lab's windowsill - distant things, faraway things that pull at her heart strings, like the end of a movie or a get-well soon card.

She's selfish. _Lonely._ And if Soul still has moments where he is sane and can make her feel a little less broken in this hell she calls a life, how is she supposed to let him go? She's already disposed of his body. Disposing of his soul will have to wait until there's nothing left to save.

Because she's codependant, too. One can no longer exist without the other.

.

"Your soul doesn't taste the same," he says to her one night, while she is tending to a bite mark on her shoulder and the scythe lays on the bathroom tile. The ointment stings, and he hisses with her as she dabs at the wound. "Fffh- it's not as sweet."

More concerned with the dual rows of teeth that tore her skin, Maka says, "That's impossible. It was never sweet to begin with."

"Said your soul, not your _personality_ ," he says bitingly. Maka ignores that, instead electing to begin winding the bandage around her haphazardly. _Wouldn't it be nice to have a second pair of hands to help,_ she hears, and ignores that, too. "Pretty little grigori isn't such an angel anymore. You taste like witch. It's weird."

Maka snorts humorlessly. " _I'm_ weird. You tell me that all the time. This isn't news."

"You're _weird_ for fucking the voice in your head. Bet you haven't written your dear ol' Papa about that one, huh? Kind of hard to bring me home to the folks. You're a lot more fucked up than you give yourself credit."

She sits, shirtless, on the edge of her tub and tenses as she tries to roll her shoulder. Her muscles are tight, and the bite still sort of stings, but she'll live. She's endured worse, and Maka knows, without a doubt, there is still more to come. Putting herself on the frontline of battle is decidedly more dangerous than experimenting with weapons and witchcraft. Sure, one might've altered her soul a little, but the other puts her face-to-face with deformed, ravenous monsters, and she's still a grigori to the end. She's still the cherry popsicle in the back of the freezer.

Either way, she's fucked. Either way, she's still single-handedly produced nearly a dozen demon-powered weapons and handed them off to defense officials. She's still the only one who can ever wield Soul.

Maka sighs and yanks her pigtails out. "I think I give myself plenty of credit," she grunts, flinging her tangled elastics toward the sink.

She's the shining star, after all. The big hero. Local brainiac girl helps save mankind with her game-changing discovery. Because of her, kishin have been slain with minimal human casualties. There is a plausible resistance. The sky isn't so gloomy anymore. Madness-suppressing medication isn't taken in (daily) double doses quite so often. Hope is palpable for the first time in months - maybe even years - and all Maka can think about is the soldiers she's doomed by putting a demon in their hands. She thinks of Soul, alive and well, with his whole life ahead of him and how his demon had managed to so easily snap his will.

And Soul was just the first. Soul was just the _guinea pig._ There will be more Souls, inevitably, as time goes on. And there will be more Makas, left to clean the blood off their hands.

There will be Maka herself, with Asura's head at her feet. There will be Maka herself, forced to look her father in the eye and pretend like she hadn't essentially committed a murder, pretend like she has nothing to do with the missing Evans boy.

She will have to pretend like she's okay with tearing families apart. Loved ones. Mothers, fathers, daughters, sons. For the greater good, she'll say, and they will believe her, because they won't know of the turmoil she'd went through to bond that first demon to a scythe. They won't know the damaging properties of witchcraft on a human soul because she won't tell them. Demons were a necessary evil.

She sleeps on her sore shoulder and props Soul next to her bed. He doesn't reach out and she doesn't ask him to. They both know she needs rest.

.

Papa is just as she remembers him.

Somehow his hair hasn't grayed, despite all of the time he's spent fighting in the war. Spirit Albarn is still a vibrant crimson in the daylight, an obnoxious tint that cannot exist without a box of hair dye. Still, he's never let it deter him before, and even with the lines of his face grown more sullen and the wrinkles of his forehead more dramatic, he still finds a way to be the brightest thing in the room.

He cries when he first sees her. Then he drops down and hugs her, squeezing so tightly that it bothers her aching ribs, only to clasp her face in his hands and smother her in parental kisses. It's the sort of attention she'd dreaded as a teenager - Spirit has always been a helicopter parent - but Maka feels her stone heart sink deeper in her chest like a dead weight.

She swats his face away and steels her stance. "Papa," she greets, carefully neutral.

He practically glows. "My baby girl. A _genius._ "

The sinking in her chest becomes a full-blown nosedive. Maka clenches her scythe in her hands and takes a deep, cleansing breath. "It's not over yet, you know. Asura's still out there-"

"And just Asura. And some low level threats," Spirit amends, only beneath the weight of her stare. He waves it off with a flip of his hand and goes right back to gushing over her, plopping both of his hands on her steady shoulders. "Look at you. You look just like your mother."

If it wasn't for the steel of her scythe, she might not be standing. Maka has grown strong in the days she's been forced to walk alone, but the guilt is almost too much to bear. "Papa," she tries, cracking, splintering.

He smooches her right on her forehead. "She'd be so proud. All of your hard work paid off, angel."

Her demon hisses, swelling in her hands impossibly, louder than anything else in her head. He's such a constant white noise. It's hard to think of anything else but his constant chatter, the way he's begun to tear her down, even now, while her papa crowns her in such praise. It's jarring, being caught between two such polarizing ends, and Maka opts to force bored neutrality over showing weakness.

She is brave. She is strong. She is her mother's daughter, and she will not back down. Not yet. Not while her clock is still ticking - not even when she's approaching the end of her countdown. Like a time bomb, Maka will persevere until the bitter, explosive end.

So she bucks up, stares her father in the eye, and says, "I'm going to finish this."

There's a chink in his armor, just for a moment, where he is less a grinning, proud parent and more a scared, concerned father sending his daughter off to war. Her papa really is getting older, she supposes; his blue eyes are damp with tears but he doesn't blubber, just nods and squeezes her shoulders.

Papa knows loneliness too. After all, Maka wasn't the only one who lost someone when Mama died. In a weird way, she sort of hopes Papa finds someone to make a new home with after all of this is over.

.

Arachne had been the last witch to die.

It had been all over the news. Radio, TV, covered in class discussions and podcasts alike; it was a big deal, for the mother of modern witchcraft to have been murdered, but for her soul to have been stolen and eaten like a commodity by a kishin was treated like an actual tragedy. And maybe it was; she had been the oldest living witch, the strongest, the most tenacious - her soul was potent with magic and energy alike, and Asura had slurped her down like she was nothing.

There's a certain karmic poeticness to taking him on with a demon weapon. It had been Arachne's life work first, after all. Maka had done nothing more than commandeer the plan and further Medusa Gorgon's research on black blood.

Asura will fall to the combined work of two witches and one scorned little girl.

 _Big girl,_ Soul reminds helpfully, lingering somewhere in between heaven and hell. _Big girl who's in way over her head._

Each step closer to the kishin is threaded with more and more madness. It's like a fog, wafting off of him in a thick, smothering smog, and if Maka were any weaker willed, she might be swayed. But if not even _Soul_ can tempt her to dampen what's left of her, Asura doesn't stand a chance. He can try drowning her in as potent a madness wavelength as he wants, he won't get anywhere. It'll just be more stress on his mangled body.

And mangled it is. For someone - some _thing_ \- so powerful and terrifying, it's disturbing how thin his body is. Scrawny ankles, bony wrists, jutting ribs. Once upon a time, this man had been handsome, rich, privileged. Once upon a time, this man had been someone important, someone loved - now only to reek of rotting flesh and stale blood, to chew on the souls of the good while his skin sags from his sunken-in cheeks, melting off of him in patches.

The most striking part of him are his eyes.

She's biased, though, and his eyes are red and remind her of her own personal demon, the one buzzing in her hands with bloodlust and vigor. It doesn't matter, though, because she refuses to let herself linger on it. There's no more time for comparisons, no more time for feeling sorry for herself and the consequences of her actions. There is only the kishin - the strongest kishin, practically the _last_ kishin - mere strides away, chewing on his fingers, scuttling about, looking mad, unnatural.

How, she wonders, had this creature managed to defeat Arachne? He is all bones, jutting edges and marrow poking through rotting flesh. He raises his bulbous head, much too big for his scrawny neck to support, and hisses. "You smell like _witch,_ " he says, sniffing.

Maka tightens her grip on her scythe. "Try again."

He smiles at her, sharp like razor blades. "And human. And… _grigori,_ is it? You're _rare,_ " Asura says quietly, hushed, all in excited, eager tones. She is a treat, after all. Not quite a witch but not quite a human anymore, caught somewhere in between. For him, she must be a delight. Such a rare soul for him to feast upon. Such a _treat._

She wants to carve his soul out of his chest and see how he likes being looked at like he's dinner. Maka shifts her weight to her toes and lets her scythe fall in front of her, clutched tight in her grasp. There is no fear when the demon is on her side. He would never let her fall, not while she is his only chance for escape. He needs her, just like she needs him, and it's just as comforting as it is disturbing. In battle, he is her closest ally. In battle, sometimes he's the only thing keeping her alive.

"This one's big," Soul mutters.

Maka hums and watches Asura's knees wobble as he stands. So many bones. So many ribs. It's unnatural, and he rolls his ankle as he takes a rickety step toward her. "It's the last one," Maka replies.

Soul whines. "I'm hungry."

"It's the _last one,_ " she says again, firmly. "It'll be all over after this."

She feels his attitude pitch and he emits a pleased purr, rumbling through his demonsteel. It vibrates through her chest, too, and Maka bites her lip as Soul says, "You're gonna let me have this one?"

His buzzing sort of hurts her hands. Maka chokes up on his handle. "You won't be hungry anymore after this. I promise."

Soul won't hurt anymore after this. Soul won't be bound to a life he never chose, bound to her weapon, bound to a demon's will.

It's the thought of setting him free alone that gives her the strength to meet Asura's eye as he unwinds his fingers from his fists, claws long and slanting in the foggy light. The smog reminds her of deals with the devil and little onis, clicking their heels on the tiled floor while she struggles to drown him out with her light. _This_ is not the worst pain she has felt. There has been worse. Much worse. Pain a heartless monster like Asura could never fathom, could never understand.

He licks his slimy lips and lurches forward; Maka blocks, scythe lifting out of instinct, blade glinting red in the fog. "Your weapon has a soul," Asura says, salivating, nails screeching down the steel of Soul's pole. "You weapon has a _demon soul_."

Her weapon has a lot more than just that. He has a heart, too. He has his memories.

Maka kicks the kishin back and leaps forward. For as weak as he appears, he is still dangerous - he is still the monster that plummeted the Earth into darkness, after all - and even a moment's hesitation could prove fatal. His strength is not in his decaying body; his soul is ripe with raw power, pulsing with a lust for blood, an insatiable hunger for energy, poisoned with insanity. His soul is a vibrant red, just as deformed as the body he walks, spider legs sprawling out and wriggling around in his chest. Compliments of Arachne, she suspects. It's what he gets for devouring the power of a spider witch.

 _Keep it clinical,_ she tells herself. _Do not give in to his mind games. It's how he wins._

Soul's giggling reminds her just how susceptible demons are to madness. It's like he's feasting on all of this bad juju, as if he's thriving off of the tainted land. No doubt he would have a field day, should she let him roam free in her body. No doubt he could demolish Asura with a good swipe of his scythe and leave the kishin's head rolling on the floor.

He'll just have to settle for being her weapon. _I can't do that,_ she thinks. He cackles again, cooing, poking around at the soft spots in her chest that she's never been able to guard, not around him.

 _Let me in, let me in. I can win. I can kill him,_ he chants. And he can. She knows that without a doubt, Soul could sink his teeth right into the kishin's chest and rip his soul out.

But so can she. So can she.

.

A sound soul dwells within a sound mind and a sound body.

The kishin Asura is none of these things. He is wanted for countless crimes against humanity. He has eaten the souls of innocent humans and witches alike. He has pillaged cities, crushed civilization, feasted on the hopeless demise in the hearts of many. Asura has gone so against his genetic coding that his body has begun eroding, skin melting and peeling to give away to raw muscle and animalistic claws. It's changing him.

He is weak. He is dying. He is doomed, just as much a ticking bomb as she is. Eventually, his body will give way, and he will be nothing more than a poisonous entity. Eventually, he will be forced to possess others in order to continue his work.

He's _fucked the hell up,_ as Soul would say.

Maka doesn't think about how she's changing, too, as she swings her scythe right past his knobby knees. She doesn't think about the blood staining her soul or the demon that resonates with her hourly and what that might be doing to her. She doesn't think about her stone heart or the constant noise in her head, the buzz that keeps her up at night and constantly checked out of most conversations.

She's not so sound anymore either. Soon, her body will start to give away, too. Soon, there will be more demon walking in her skin than human. Without the drive to keep the world safe from madness, Soul will have no problem convincing her to let him do as he pleases.

It has to end. For both of them. Maka hefts her scythe high, lets the scream festering deep in her chest free and drives her scythe straight through Asura's chest. Bone slices like butter, and skin like paper, and he gets as far as wrapping his claws around her throat before she really digs the scythe in and cuts him free, his soul nothing more than a paper lantern in the sky.

Flesh disintegrates. Soul roars in her hands, displeased at his escaping meal, and Maka drops him at her feet. He hits the ground with a noisy clatter as she pants loudly, heart thundering in her chest, blood clapping like waves in her ears.

Her neck bleeds and stains her collared shirt. She barely notices. Above her, the clouds break.

.

"I thought you said you'd let me eat him!" Soul growls, voice rough. It's like the demon is fighting to keep control; without the kishin's madness infesting the area, it must be a great deal harder for him to maintain control over Soul's will, Soul's voice. "What the fuck. What's even the point of robbing his soul if you're just going to let him float away?! We c-could have used that... we could have gotten stronger, could have-"

The ground stings her bloody knees. Maka works almost mechanically, pressing her palm flat to the face of his blade, sucking in a deep breath and allowing the storm within her to pass. Clouds curl and gray coils deeper, still, dulling the halo of her soul. All the while, she hears the demon hiss and snarl, still trying so intently to maintain control, to ask her what the fuck she thinks she's doing - until there's a snap, and Maka feels the switch between them instinctually.

She exhales. Close. She's so close. Soon, _soon-_

"You're bleeding," Soul says quietly.

Maka blinks.

"Your neck. He had his claws around you," he says, "you should patch that up before it gets infected. It looks pretty bad. And you've got your knees in the dirt, I can't imagine that'll be good-"

Does he not realize what she's doing? She laughs out of sheer emotional whiplash, shoulders quaking. The laughter becomes tears soon after, and Soul thaws even more, asking, "What's wrong? You did it, Maka. You _did it._ "

She paints little red fingerprints on the black of his blade with her blood. She's left her mark on him, both physically and emotionally, and the thought isn't as comforting as she would have hoped. Still, she finds herself brushing her thumb over the shape of his blade, over the sharp edges, even as the scythe breaks skin and splits her thumb open. If it hurts, she barely notices; it's hard to feel anything else but the overwhelming exhaustion weighing her bones.

" _Maka!"_ he yelps. "Hey, cut that out-"

 _Shut up, Soul. Can't you see I'm trying to set you free?_

She's more than a little bit witch now. Witchcraft for the sake of building a defense was an excuse to tread in dangerous waters. Witchcraft to bind her dead lover to steel had been stalling for time. And now, witchcraft is a means to release Soul from his imprisonment. Witchcraft is a chance at freedom and redemption.

Soul goes quiet. It's good; it's hard to focus on incantations and channeling her energy and ignoring her aching ribs when he's telling her he loves her, even after all of this time. Stupid. She loves him too. That's why she has to do this.

The demon still chatters, and when his soul is warm in her hands, she can still feel his influence. Even without the madness, the demon is still part of who he is, now, soul-deep. He smells of black blood and experimentation. He is no longer merely just a human boy, just an innocent, human boy. He is part demon now. He is mad.

But she's part witch. She's part murderer, too, so she can't judge. She can do nothing more than hold his soul to her chest and feel his warmth, just one last time, warm her to her toes. His loyalty, his admiration, his smiles - she feels it all, much in the way one remembers an old friend, written deep into her heart.

"I'm so sorry," she whispers. His soul bubbles like liquid between her fingers and she cradles him more gently, afraid to squeeze too tightly and burst him like a bubble. "I'll be with you soon. Wait for me."

And he will. He doesn't need words for her to know that he will.

His soul is red as it leaves her grasp. Textbook definitions say blue means good and red means bad, but Maka thinks there's a lot of good caught in between. Victims of circumstance. Good people who have done bad things, made bad choices but are still so fundamentally _good_ and _honest_ at their core. Regardless, he's the prettiest star as he floats out of her reach, twinkling like a supernova as he fades through the sunrise.

And it is quiet. Her head is empty. The silence is almost jarring, after months of constant chatter, after months of Soul and demons alike.

It's not like she'll have to deal with it for long. Maka sighs and clutches the empty weapon, arms heavy like lead. Only now, without Soul around to pester her, does she allow the weight of her fatigue to set in. But just a little more, she thinks. Just a little more. Before Papa gets here and has to watch it happen. Before Black*Star sprints over and she loses her nerve. Before she has to continue on pretending like nothing is wrong.

They'll be okay. They're safe now. She slayed the monsters hiding in the closets and underneath the bed. There will be other people to fill their life, other girls, other daughters and friends. This one is broken anyways. They deserve a newer model, a Maka who doesn't dirty her hands and obsess over the ghost of what once was. Papa will find women to comfort him. Black*Star will find companionship, too. They will be alright.

But she won't. She'll never be alright again. Not without Soul. One cannot exist without the other.

The scythe is cold as she drives it through her chest. It hurts in the best way, and Maka chokes through a mouthful of blood. Ah, _that's it,_ just a little more, don't look into the light yet - _there's_ her soul, right there.

 _Be with you soon._


End file.
